Donna and Ten - The updated inbetweens and backstories
by SciFiFanForever
Summary: The final in the series of the tenth Doctor and his companions. I have updated the story to include all the BBC books, filling in the bits between episodes, books, and back stories of things mentioned by the characters with new chapters, scenes and dialogue. I have tried not to include too many spoilers for people who haven't read the books, and can highly recommend them.
1. Chapter 1

The final in the series of the tenth Doctor and his companions. I have updated the story to include all the BBC books, filling in the bits between episodes, books, and back stories of things mentioned by the characters with new chapters, scenes and dialogue. I have tried not to include too many spoilers for people who haven't read the books, and can highly recommend them. (The PDF versions are available at iguanasrus)

Thanks to:

tardiswiki, for canon information.

chakoteya , for transcripts.

The books are:

Lungbarrow BY MARC PLATT

The Monsters Inside BY STEPHEN COLE

Ghosts of India BY MARK MORRIS

The Doctor Trap BY SIMON MESSINGHAM

Shining Darkness BY MARK MICHALOWSKI

Beautiful Chaos BY GARRY RUSSELL

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 **Chiswick, London.**

 **Christmas Day, 2007.**

'Thanks then, Donna. Good luck. And just . . . be magnificent,' the Doctor said from the doorway of the TARDIS.

'I think I will . . . yeah,' she replied. The Doctor went back into the TARDIS and closed the door. 'Doctor?' She called.

'Oh, what is it now?' he asked, feigning annoyance, but smiling at her.

'That friend of yours . . . what was her name?' She realised that his missing friend was probably the one who used to tell him when enough was enough.

'Her name was Rose.' He went back inside, and the noise of the time rotor started. Donna watched with a smile as the TARDIS started to fade, and then it shot up into the air and disappeared.

'Hah! Flash git,' she said with a laugh. She turned around and went back into the house, where her parents, Geoff and Sylvia were waiting.

'How are you bearing up Sweetheart?' her father asked as she walked into the living room. 'Not quite the day you'd planned, was it?' He enveloped her in a hug.

'Nah,' she said as she accepted his comforting embrace.

'About that Donna, the disappearing trick in the church, those robot Santa's, the exploding Christmas tree decorations, was it all a practical joke that went wrong?' Geoff asked her.

'I bet it was that Nerys. It wouldn't have happened at all if you'd have taken that job at Chowdry Photocopiers like I said,' her mother, Sylvia said.

'Mum, leave it!' Donna said sharply.

'Sylvia! Our daughter has just had what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life ruined,' Geoff said. 'As well as seeing her fiancé killed, and being left with her life in ruins . . . I don't think she needs an "I told you so".'

Sylvia didn't reply, she couldn't, she'd been told off, and he was right, she loved her only daughter, but sometimes it seemed as though she brought these things on herself.

'Look, let's just try and put it behind us, yeah? I don't know about you, but I'm starvin', and nobody does a Christmas dinner like yer mum,' Donna said with a smile.

Sylvia reluctantly smiled at her daughter's resilience, and took that as a Christmas armistice on their differing points of view. 'Okay, Geoff, can set the table, and Donna can help me serve.'

Geoff smiled fondly at his wife, she might have a quick temper and a sharp tongue, but she meant well, and he loved her dearly. And where he was willing to let his daughter find her own way in the world, Sylvia was more critical of her, wanting her to do something proper and conventional.

They eventually sat down to enjoy their turkey dinner, whilst watching the Eastenders Christmas special, which had the usual mix of family joviality and jeopardy. Christmas pudding was accompanied by the animated, plasticine Wallace and Grommit, which lightened everyone's mood.

'So what happened to that strange man then?' Sylvia asked. 'That Doctor?'

Donna had a far away look in her eyes. 'He left,' she told her.

'I didn't get to meet him or thank him for bringing you back,' Geoff said.

'Thank him?' Sylvia said. 'It was probably all his fault; I mean, how could he know what was going on if he didn't have something to do with it. Were those his special effects that went wrong?'

Donna rolled her eyes. 'Oh Mum, stop it! It's because he knew what was going on that he was able to save us.'

'Well all I'm saying is that our life was quite ordinary until he turned up and then all sorts of weird things started to happen. You said yourself that he had something to do with that big thing in the sky last Christmas, and those robots battling it out over the Isle of Dogs.'

'Ah, come on though, it doesn't mean HE was responsible for causing the trouble now, does it?' Geoff said.

Donna smiled warmly at her father; it was just like him to see the other point of view. Where she and her mother would jump to conclusions and cast accusations, her father would listen to the arguments, weigh up the evidence, and come to an informed decision.

She rolled her eyes and gave a goofy smile. 'This is bonkers! Listen to us, talkin' about lights in the sky and battling robots like it's an everyday occurrence.'

'It might well be soon,' Geoff said seriously. 'Your granddad's been looking for ufo's for years now, with that telescope of his up on the allotment.'

'So what are you going to do now then?' Sylvia asked her daughter, trying to bring the conversation back to "real life", and attempting to sympathise with her plight.

Donna smiled, realising that her mum was trying to be kind. 'Well, I've still got the tickets for two weeks in Egypt, it was supposed to be my honeymoon, might as well make it a holiday.'

'What, you're still going?' Sylvia asked incredulously.

'Too right I am,' Donna said. 'It'll give me time to come to terms with what's happened, and to think about what I'm going to do next . . . talking of which Dad, I was wondering if I could move back into my old room for a bit. With old man Clements being killed, the company has shut down, and I'm out of a job.'

'Of course you can Sweetheart,' Geoff said, as Sylvia rolled her eyes and huffed.

 **West Ham United Boleyn Ground Stadium, East London.**

 **Wednesday 30th January, 2008** **.**

Geoff Noble reached for his flask of hot tea to warm him up during the halftime break. His team, West Ham had held Liverpool to a goalless draw into the break, and were looking confident to make some headway in the second half. It had been nine years since they had beaten the Merseyside team, and both sides were not going to give in easily.

A tall man in a long brown coat, with a claret and blue scarf wrapped around his neck, edged past him, presumably heading back from the toilets.

'Excuse me, is your name Noble?' the man asked Geoff. 'Are you Donna's dad?'

Geoff looked up from his steaming tea, to see a man with sticky up hair smiling at him. 'Yes, that's right, Geoff Noble, Donna's dad.'

'Oh brilliant! Thought I recognised you . . . I'm a friend of hers, I was at the wedding . . . Well, the almost wedding . . . Well . . .' He let the sentence trail off.

Geoff vaguely remembered seeing the man before, but that day was a bit chaotic and disastrous, and he didn't have time to remember everyone who was there. The tall, thin man in the brown coat and with the sticky up hair, saw Geoff looking at him expectantly.

'Oh, sorry, John . . . John Smith.' He held out his hand and Geoff shook it, just as he wobbled and nearly fainted.

'Are you alright?' Geoff asked him with concern.

'Mmm, low blood sugar,' he replied as he slumped into the empty chair next to him. 'I've had nothing to eat today . . . upset stomach earlier on. I'm fine now, and was going to have a burger from one of the vendors outside, but found I was a pound short.'

'Oh here you are,' Geoff said, leaning over so that he could reach into his trouser pocket. He pulled out a handful of loose change and sorted out a pound coin. 'There you are, have it. Go and get you something to eat, have it on me.'

John Smith gave him such a smile, that you could only call it proud. 'You'd do that for a stranger?'

'Well, you're not really a stranger if you know Donna, are you?'

'Amazing!' he said with a grin and holding out his hand again. 'Thank you Geoff Noble, you're a good man.' After shaking hands again, he stood and made his way to the end of the aisle, before turning and calling back to him. 'And don't forget to tell that daughter of yours that you love her now and again, you never know when it will be too late.'

Geoff gave him a puzzled look, before nodding and waving. The man in the brown pin striped suit and long brown coat, with a claret and blue scarf, and sticky up hair, made his way to 2010 to buy a lottery ticket.

It was around ten o'clock at night when Geoff got home from the match, and both Sylvia and Donna could tell he was happy.

'Veni, vidi, vici,' he said, beaming a smile. 'One nil, one nil! A penalty in extra time and you'll never guess who scored.'

West Ham was Donna's team as well, naturally, as Geoff had taken her to the matches when she was little. 'Go on Dad, who was it?'

'It was a Noble!'

'Wha?! Mark Noble?' she asked, mouth open wide. 'Brilliant!'

'Oh, I met a friend of yours there, what was his name? John . . . that was it.'

Donna frowned, trying to think of which friend it could be. 'What'd he look like?'

'Tall thin chap with dark hair.' That description would fit half the male population.

'Oh, right . . . could be anybody,' she said, trying to think of who it could be. 'Anyway, I'm off to bed, got to be down the Job Centre early in the mornin'.' She had been back from Egypt for two weeks, and in that time she had been looking for a permanent job.

She'd had that one day with the Doctor, and she was going to change. She was going to do so much. Then she woke up the next morning, and it was the same old life; as though he'd never been there. And she tried. She went to Egypt, to go barefoot and everything. But it was all bus trips and guidebooks and don't drink the water, and two weeks later she was back home.

'Okay Sweetheart,' Geoff said, and then thought about what John had said. 'I love you Sweetheart, and I'm very proud of you.'

Donna looked a bit puzzled. 'I love you too Dad.' She kissed him on the cheek as she went past and headed for bed.

'What was all that about?' Sylvia asked, looking as puzzled as her daughter.

'Oh, it was just something her friend said . . . and you know I love you, don't you?'

Sylvia walked over to him and stroked his cheek. 'Of course I do.' She kissed him tenderly on the lips. 'Come on you, take me to bed.'

Geoff grinned and waggled his eyebrows, taking her hand and leading her out of the living room. That night, he had a bout of heartburn that wouldn't go away, and got steadily worse. In the early hours of the morning, Sylvia was so worried, that she dialled 999 and called for an ambulance.

The next morning in the Cardiac Ward of the hospital, Geoff Noble was told that his chronic heart failure had become worse. He would have to take early retirement and take things easy from now on.

 **Brookside Road.**

 **Friday 15th May 2008.**

Sylvia and Donna were running on autopilot after the funeral at the Crematorium, saying hello to friends and relatives, thanking them for coming, as they helped themselves to sandwiches and drinks in the dining room.

Wilf was in his black suit, with his medals proudly displayed on his chest. 'It was a good send off Gal,' he said to his daughter. 'He'd have been pleased with that.'

'Yeah, thanks Dad,' Sylvia said quietly. 'I don't know what I'm going to do without him.'

Tears started to well in her eyes, and Donna reached for her hand, squeezing it in support. They rarely saw eye to eye or agreed on anything, they were too alike, with their fiery tempers and sharp tongues, but they were united in their grief, and knew that the house wouldn't be the same without Geoff.

People were wandering between the dining room and the living room, standing in little groups with their paper plates of food, saying what a lovely man Geoff Noble had been. They remembered him with amusing anecdotes, and with stories that told of his strength of character which brought laughter and tears.

The afternoon passed into evening, and when everyone had paid their respects and offered their sympathy, they started to leave the new house that they now called home. After her disastrous wedding and slightly less disastrous trip to Egypt, her parents had moved from their terraced house where Donna had grown up into this new semi.

It had been an upheaval, compounded as it was by Donna not having a job and Wilf originally being cross because he thought he'd have to leave his astronomer buddies behind. As it turned out, of course, the allotments were easier to get to from the new house, so he was happy after all.

But Donna's dad hadn't been well for a long time, and in many ways the move had been his idea, his desire to find somewhere new to be, to give him a bit of challenge. He'd got bored in the old house. He'd built all the cupboards, shelved all the walls, painted all the ceilings he was ever able to do, and he needed something new to keep him active since his illness had made him take early retirement.

Doing up the new place to Mum's quite stringent specifications would be exactly the right challenge. They had been there three months before Dad passed. Donna and Wilf had taken on the mantle of doing all those odd jobs Dad had been going to do, but they were never quite right, they were never "how your dad would have done it".

It wasn't altogether surprising – after all, Wilf was twenty-odd years older, and Donna had never lifted a paintbrush or hammer in her life before. And now, sitting in silence around the kitchen table, each of them looking silently into their cups of tea, none of it seemed to matter anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The Doctor put the key in the TARDIS door and took one last look at the sky before stepping inside. He was on the coast of Meta Sigmafolio, and the sky looked like oil on water, the colours swirling from a burst of star fire. It really was beautiful, but without having someone to share it with, it was sort of flat.

Rose would have been hugging his arm and bouncing on her toes in excitement, that radiant smile on her gorgeous lips, and a childlike wonder in those gorgeous, hazel eyes. Once again his thoughts had turned to his lost love, and once again he wondered how she was doing in Pete's World.

He strolled up the ramp to the console and put the TARDIS into the Vortex, before moving around the console, making various adjustments to the settings as he looked up at the time rotor. He materialised the TARDIS into normal space so that he could take the extrapolator shields off line and calibrate them properly after the Master had messed with them to create the paradox engine.

BARRRRRRPPP!

CRUNCH!

He was suddenly thrown to the floor, as the TARDIS lurched sideways under the impact of a collision, debris flew across the room.

'What?!' he said as he held on to the console.

BARRRRRRPPP! The fog horn sounded again, as if in answer to his question.

'What?' he asked again in disbelief, as he pulled himself upright. He could hear a ships bell dinging from the bow of what appeared to be an ocean going liner that was sticking through the TARDIS's domed wall. He noticed a piece of wreckage that appeared to be a large ring and reached for it, and turned it over to read the name 'Titanic'.

'What?' He jumped up to the console and started manoeuvring the TARDIS out of the path of the vessel. The wall panels pulled together and the ship was slowly pushed back outside. He then set the controls, and materialised the TARDIS inside the ship.

Stepping outside, he had a quick look around, and noticed he had landed in a kind of store cupboard. He walked through a door into an opulent dining room of dark wood panelling, and brass fittings. Diners dressed in expensive clothing stood chatting and socialising; two golden robots dressed as angels, and . . . ooh, now that was something you didn't see every day, a small red Zocci from Sto in white tie and tails.

He wandered over to a window and looked out. 'Righttttt,' he said slowly in realisation, as a voice made an announcement over the Tannoy.

'Attention all passengers. The Titanic is now in orbit above Sol Three, also known as Earth. Population, Human. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Christmas.'

* * *

It had started so well on the Titanic, he'd changed into his dinner suit and did what he always enjoyed doing best, meeting people. But that suit seemed to be jinxed, because when he wore it, bad things seemed to happen, although, to be fair, bad things happened when he wore his brown pinstriped suit, his blue pinstriped suit, his pyjamas . . .

And it ended so badly; so many people dead, one of whom reminded him SO much of Rose. Her name was Astrid, an ordinary woman, working as a waitress so that she could travel.

'You enjoying the cruise?' she had asked him, after he helped her pick up some glasses off the floor.

'Er, yeah, I suppose, I don't know. It doesn't quite work, a cruise on your own,' he had told her.

'You're not with anyone?' she had asked in surprise.

If only she'd known how painful that question was. 'No, no, just me. Just, er, used to be but, er, no.' One recently lost, one recently left, that was enough for now. 'What about you? Long way from home, Planet Sto.'

'Doesn't feel that different,' she had said wistfully. 'I spent three years working at the spaceport diner, travelled all the way here and I'm still waiting on tables,'

'No shore leave?' That had seemed a bit mean.

'We're not allowed. They can't afford the insurance. I just wanted to try it, just once. I used to watch the ships heading out to the stars and I always dreamt of. It sounds daft.'

It hadn't sounded daft to the Doctor at all. 'You dreamt of another sky. New sun, new air, new life; a whole universe teeming with life. Why stand still when there's all that life out there?'

She'd had a sense of adventure, a sense of humour, and a sense of what was right, and it was these qualities that had eventually gotten her killed. She had given her life so that he could survive and save the Titanic and the Earth.

The majority of the passengers and crew survived Max Capricorn's attempt to crash the Titanic into the Earth, although he wasn't sure all of them deserved to. There again, Mr. Copper had hinted at some of the Doctor's demons, when a businessman called Slade had told them that he had made a fortune by selling his shares in Max Capricorn Cruise Liners.

'Of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen, is he?' Copper asked him. 'But if you could choose, Doctor, if you decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster.'

The Doctor thought of a previous incarnation, a renegade who had done just that. And Copper was right, it had made him a monster, a monster that had chosen to destroy a planet and murder billions, so that everyone else in the universe would be safe.

'Mister Copper, I think you deserve one of these,' he told him, handing him a teleport bracelet, and they ended up on Hampstead Heath, near to the TARDIS, which had followed its emergency programme and landed on the nearest source of gravity, which happened to be the Earth. Mr. Copper was the tour guide on the Titanic for the on-shore excursions, and supposedly was an expert on Earth history with a first class degree in Earthonomics.

'So, Great Britain is part of Europey, and just across the British Channel, you've got Great France and Great Germany,' Copper said.

'No, no, it's just . . . it's just France and Germany. Only Britain is Great.'

'Oh, and they're all at war with the continent of Ham Erica.'

'No. Well . . . not yet. Er, could argue that one. There she is. Survive anything.'

'You know, between you and me, I don't even think this snow is real. I think it's the ballast from the Titanic's salvage entering the atmosphere,' Copper said, looking up to the sky.

'Yeah. One of these days it might snow for real.'

'So . . . I . . . I suppose you'll be off.'

'The open sky.'

'And, what about me?' Copper asked hesitantly.

'I travel alone. It's best that way.' No one to lose, no one to leave, no one to die, he thought to himself.

'What am I supposed to do?'

'Give me that credit card.'

'It's just petty cash. Spending money. It's all done by computer. I didn't really know the currency, so I thought a million might cover it.'

'A million? Pounds?' the Doctor asked, surprise in his voice.

'That enough for trinkets?'

'Mister Copper, a million pounds is worth fifty million credits.'

'How much?'

'Fifty million and fifty six.'

'I've got money.'

'Yes, you have.'

'Oh, my word. Oh, my Vot! Oh, my goodness me. Yee ha!'

'It's all yours, planet Earth. Now, that's a retirement plan. But just you be careful, though.'

'I will, I will. Oh, I will.'

'No interfering. I don't want any trouble; just, just have a nice life.'

'But I can have a house. A proper house, with a garden, and a door, and . . . Oh, Doctor, I will make you proud. And I can have a kitchen with chairs, and windows, and plates, and . . .'

The Doctor watched Mr. Copper wandering off.

'Er, where are you going?'

'Well, I've no idea.'

'No, me neither.'

'But Doctor, I won't forget her,' Copper said, meaning Astrid Peth.

(A streak of blue starlight zig-zags across the sky.)

Neither would the Doctor, he remembered everyone he had failed. Astrid was the latest in a roll call of the dead, joining Katarina, Sarah, Adric, Kamelion, his family and friends on Gallifrey, and Rose. He knew she wasn't dead, and that gave him so much solace, even though he would never, ever see her again. May be Martha was right to get out when she did, while she was still alive.

'Merry Christmas, Mister Copper.'

The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS, walked up the ramp to the console, and activated the time rotor. He thought about what Mr. Copper had said when he found out that he was rich.

['But I can have a house. A proper house, with a garden, and a door, and I can have a kitchen with chairs, and windows, and plates.'] It reminded him of a similar conversation he'd had with Rose once, when they thought they had lost the TARDIS on Krop Tor.

['I don't know. Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe,'] Rose had said.

['I'd have to settle down. Get a house or something. A proper house with, with doors and things. Carpets. Me, living in a house. Now that, that is terrifying.'] Unlike Mr. Copper, he wasn't that enthusiastic about settling down, especially now that he'd lost Rose.

['You'd have to get a mortgage,'] she'd teased.

['No!']

['Oh, yes.']

['I'm dying. That's it. I'm dying. It is all over,'] he'd joked at the time.

['What about me? I'd have to get one, too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both, I don't know, share. Or not, you know. Whatever. I don't know. We'll sort something out,'] she had ventured hesitantly. He'd give anything now to have the opportunity to have a house with Rose.

['Anyway.'] He had tried to change the subject.

['We'll see.']

['I promised Jackie I'd always take you back home,'] he had guiltily reminded her.

And, being Rose, she had tried to ease his feelings of guilt. ['Everyone leaves home in the end.']

['Not to end up stuck here,'] he had replied dejectedly.

['Yeah, but stuck with you . . . that's not so bad.']

['Yeah?'] He had asked her.

['Yes.'] Her answer echoed in his memory as he watched the time rotor pump up and down.

He straightened up and took a deep breath. Time to move on, no point dwelling on the past, even for a Time Lord . . . although . . . He went through to the kitchen and used the replicator to produce a simple meal of shepherd's pie. He smiled as he remembered Jackie Tyler offering to cook it for him all those years ago when he was all ears and moody.

He put the plate on a tray, with a knife and fork and glass of beer, before going to the library and putting the tray on the old, dark oak table. He then went to a bookcase and selected a thick, bound volume which he put in the book holder. He started eating, and opened the book, which contained photographs of his family and friends.

There were pictures of his early life at Lungbarrow on Gallifrey, with birthdays, Otherstides and holidays with his parents and his brother, with different faces from different regenerations. Pictures of his own family, with his wife and children, and his grandchildren. That made him think of his second childhood from a different time line, where he had no parents, just forty one cousins from the Lungbarrow loom.

Somehow, that time line ceased to exist when the Hand of Omega took him through the Backtime Field Buffers, to the old Capital city before the fall of Pythia. There were no photographs, and no mementos, how could there be, it never happened, just as "the year that never was" never happened for anyone who wasn't on the Valiant, at the epicentre of the paradox machine.

He continued to turn the pages as he ate, working his way through his regenerations and his companions, until he got to his love, Rose. In the first photo she was wearing that burgundy period dress in Cardiff, when he'd first realised she was a beautiful young woman. He smiled at the photo of her in the Union Jack T shirt, with Jack and him either side of her, oh, and Jack had taken the one at San Kallon, where they had their arms around each other.

He looked at their first Christmas together in his new body, all crackers, paper hats, and turkey. After that, she had posed as the goddess Fortuna, while she was still in her toga, and then they had been in the film the Italian Job. Eventually he got to their visit to the 2012 Olympic Games, and those pictures became painful to look at, as it was their last trip together before the events of Canary Wharf.

Finally, there was Martha with Shakespeare, who was looking bemused at having a small, futuristic device pointed at him while he fondled her bum. Martha in front of the TARDIS, looking down at the camera phone, so she could get the Statue of Liberty towering over her in the background. He finished his meal, and closed the cover on nine hundred years of memories.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Donna Noble ambled into the kitchen, where her mother, Sylvia was preparing dinner. Her granddad, Wilf, was sitting at the table drinking tea.

'Evenin' Sweetheart,' he said cheerfully. 'There's tea in the pot.'

'Thanks Granddad.'

'Have you found a job yet?' Sylvia asked in a disapproving tone. 'Or have you just been out meeting those weirdoes's off the internet?'

'I was . . . doing some voluntary work in the hope of finding . . . a job,' she replied in exasperation. She'd moved back in with her parents after returning from holiday in Egypt, and shortly afterwards, her dad had died. Since then, her mum had been nagging her incessantly about everything; it was as though everything she did would never be good enough for her.

'That's very enterprisin' of ya Gal,' Wilf said in her defence.

Donna felt a bit guilty about that, because the voluntary work had been to go and visit a haunted house called Wester Drumlins, in the hope of finding a tall, thin alien with sticky up hair and a blue police box. There had been reports of people going missing, cars abandoned, and now, the investigating detective had also disappeared.

She'd already been to the Royal Hope Hospital, but all the action had finished when she got there. And it had been the same at the haunted house today, there was just a crayon message telling someone called Sally Sparrow to duck, and a collection of gruesome statues in the basement, standing in a circle.

And then the conspiracy sites had been buzzing with stories about the Lazarus Laboratories in Southwark, where the old man on the news had become a young man who tried to kill everyone. That one had got the Doctor written all over it, but once again, by the time she got there, it was all over.

She was trying to find the Doctor, because after coming back from Egypt, she had tried to settle back into a normal life, but like so many people who had been inside that impossible box before her, it had changed her perception of the world, and the universe, and her life would never be normal again.

'Well, you could always . . . come with me,' he had asked her, but she had seen him in that place under the Thames, all fire and ice and rage. Like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, ancient and forever. Burning at the centre of time, seeing the turn of the universe . . . He was terrifying. It was fair to say, that she had been in shock that day.

But in Egypt, she'd had time to relax, and reflect on the events of that day, and she had remembered that the Doctor had tried to offer the Empress a way out.

'Empress of the Racnoss, I give you one last chance. I can find you a planet; I can find you and your children a place in the universe to co-exist. Take that offer and end this now,' he had told her, but she had just laughed at him, saying 'These men are so funny.'

'What's your answer?' He'd demanded.

'Oh I'm afraid I have to decline,' she'd said in a patronising tone.

And what he'd said then made her blood run cold. 'What happens next is your own doing.' It wasn't particularly what he said, but the way he'd said it. His voice was quiet and cold, devoid of any anger; the only emotion she could remember in his voice was of remorse or regret.

She thought about his offer to travel with him. "But you've seen it out there . . . it's beautiful," he'd said, and now she'd had time to think about it, he was right. She had stood at the doors of that crazy box and looked out on the universe, at a beautiful wispy nebula, all purple and red.

'Well lady,' Sylvia said, bringing her back to the present. 'The sooner this voluntary work gets you a job the better.'

Wilf was miming Sylvia's words and pulling a face as he did it, which made Donna splutter her tea into the mug. She loved her granddad, and he was her one ally who understood what she was trying to get from life.

After they had eaten, her mum went out for the evening to meet up with some friends, and her granddad had gone to his allotment. Donna logged onto her laptop and started to search the conspiracy web sites. She made a note of the local stories, and then sorted them into the order of which would be most likely to attract the attention of the Doctor.

'Bees disappearin'?' she said to herself. 'Right, check with some local beekeepers and see what they have to say.'

Then there was a story that caught her eye, not particularly because it would attract the attention of the Doctor, but because she had heard her mum mention the company, Adipose Industries. She'd said that when Donna had got a job and started to bring some money into the house, she wouldn't mind trying the slimming tablets.

The web site she was on had a report from an investigative journalist, which claimed that, the test reports and data from Adipose Industries was fabricated, and that something else, something sinister was causing the weight loss.

'Something sinister eh, I wonder if he'd agree?' she asked herself, thinking about the Doctor. She searched for information on Adipose Industries and found some news items, including a press conference scheduled for tomorrow.

'Right then, I reckon that place needs a health and safety inspection.' She knew from previous places she'd worked at, that the Health and Safety Executive would conduct unannounced inspections, and that employers were terrified of them.

She searched for images of official I.D badges, and printed a few off, cutting them to size so that they fitted over her driver's license, with the corner cut out to show her photograph. If she walked in as though she owned the place, and flashed the driver's license with a fake pass in front of it, she should be able to get in.

 **Adipose Industries, London.**

 **Monday 12th May 2008.**

Donna walked through the revolving doors of the multi-storey, glass, and steel office building, carrying a red clip board, and headed for the lifts as though she knew exactly where she was going. She didn't . . . not yet, but she soon would. Having worked in many offices over the years, she knew that a press conference would be listed on an events board somewhere in the foyer.

And there it was, just past the reception counter, a stand up board with a list of events for the day. At the top of the list was 'Press announcement with Miss Foster - Lecture Theatre - First Floor.'

'Donna Noble, Health and Safety,' she said to the security man at the lift, quickly flashing her small wallet with the fake I.D in it. She stepped out on the first floor and followed the signs, and the interested parties to the lecture theatre. She took a seat, half way down the auditorium, and looked all around the room, looking for a particular, distinctive, sticky up hair style.

She sat down disappointedly, and waited for the presentation to start. "Where is he?" she thought to herself as she waited. She was sure that something like this would draw him like a moth to light bulb. If she only knew that he was only a few metres above her in the projection room, waiting like her for the show to start.

A prim and proper blonde woman, dressed in an immaculate, dark business suit, walked onto the stage and stood at the microphone.

'Adipose Industries, the twenty first century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain, just lifelong freedom from fat. The Holy Grail of the modern age. And here it is.' Miss Foster held up a small red and white capsule.

'You just take one capsule . . . one capsule, once a day for three weeks, and the fat, as they say . . .' She turned to look at the projection screen behind her.

A smooth voice over said. 'The fat walks away.'

A young dark skinned woman raised her hand and interrupted the presentation. 'Excuse me, Miss Foster, if I could? I'm Penny Carter, science correspondent for The Observer. There are a thousand diet pills on the market, a thousand con men stealing people's money. How do we know the fat isn't going straight into your bank account?'

"Ooh, good on yer girl," Donna thought, "that's rattled her." She recognised that name from somewhere, and then she realised it was her blog on the conspiracy web site.

Miss Foster removed her glasses and regained her composure. 'Oh, Penny, if cynicism burnt up calories, we'd all be as thin as rakes, but if you want the science, I can oblige,' she said smoothly, trying to hide her irritation.

The projection screen showed an animation to accompany the smooth voice over. 'Adipose Industries. The Adipose capsule is composed of a synthesised mobilising lipase, bound to a large protein molecule. The mobilising lipase breaks up the triglycerides stored in the adipose cells, which then enter the bloodstream and cause spontaneous absorption.'

Donna listened to the presentation, without a clue of what they were talking about. She often watched adverts on the telly about, shampoo, face cream and healthy yoghurt, and was taken in by the scientific sounding enzymes and bacteria. She was out of her depth; she needed a doctor, she needed THE Doctor.

'One hundred percent legal, one hundred percent effective,' Foster said as the short film finished.

'But, can I just ask, how many people have taken the pills to date?' Penny the journalist asked.

'We've already got one million customers within the Greater London area alone, but from next week, we start rolling out nationwide. The future starts here, and Britain will be thin.'

After the presentation, Donna found her way to the call centre, where a number of operatives were in individual cubicles, cold calling customers. She found a young man called Craig, and managed to get the free gift of a pendant as a sample . . . for health and safety, of course. She also managed to blag a list of customers off him . . . for health and safety, of course.

* * *

Donna returned home late in the evening, after calling in on a local beekeeper, to see if he had any information on why the bees were disappearing, before visiting one of the Adipose customers. The beekeeper was as much in the dark as Donna was, as the bees seemed to be healthy, and the hive was thriving, when suddenly, all the bees would leave without a trace.

The visit to the Adipose customer had turned out weird, as the woman, called Stacey, had disappeared from her bathroom, and Donna had seen a small, grey, alien jump out of the small window. She had no idea where Stacey had gone, was she teleported away like she had been on her wedding day? Had she been transformed into that little grey creature?

'And what time's this Sylvia called from the kitchen, as Donna walked in through the front door.

'How old am I?'

'Not old enough to use a phone.'

Donna went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on to make a cup of tea.

'I thought you were only moving back for a couple of weeks,' Sylvia said as Donna sat at the table drinking her tea. 'Look at you. I mean, you're never gonna find a flat, not while you're on the dole.' Donna sat there in stunned silence, trying to get her head around the idea that a woman could disappear from a locked bathroom.

'And it's no good sitting there, dressed up, looking like you're job hunting.' Sylvia was off on one tonight.

'You've got to do something. It's not like the 1980s. No one's unemployed these days except you,' she continued.

'How long did that job with Health and Safety last? Two days, and then you walk out.' On and on she went.

'I have other plans. Well, I've not seen them.' All the time, Sylvia was cleaning the kitchen as she nagged.

'And it's no good sitting there dreaming. No one's going to come along with a magic wand and make your life all better.'

'Where is Granddad?' Donna asked, trying to get her mother off her case.

'Where do you think he is? Up the hill. He's always up the hill.'

"And who can blame him?" Donna thought to herself, it got him away from her incessant nagging.

'Aye, aye. Here comes trouble,' Wilf said as he saw Donna approach his little sanctuary of a ramshackle shed on his allotment.

'Permission to board ship, sir?' she said jokingly.

'Permission granted,' he said with a salute. 'Was she nagging you?'

She returned the salute and laughed. 'Big time . . . Brought you a thermos.'

'Oh, ta.' He sat down in his garden chair.

'You seen anything?' she asked, nodding at the telescope, and looking up to the heavens.

'Yeah, I've got Venus, there with an apparent magnitude of minus three point five. At least, that's what it says in my little book.'

Donna took a tarpaulin out of the shed and put it on the ground next to him. 'Here, come and see. Come on. Here you go. Right?'

She knelt down and looked through the telescope at the bright evening star.

'That's the only planet in the Solar System named after a woman.'

'Good for her. How far away is that?'

'Oh, it's about twenty six million miles. But we'll get there, one day. In a hundred years time we'll be striding out amongst the stars. Jiggling about with all them aliens . . . just you wait.'

'You really believe in all that stuff, don't you?'

'It's all over the place these days. If I wait here long enough . . .'

'I don't suppose you've seen a little blue box?' she asked him hopefully.

'Is that slang for something?'

'No, I mean it. If you ever see a little blue box flying up there in the sky, you shout for me, Gramps. Oh, you just shout.'

'Do you know, I don't understand half the things you say these days,' he said, giving her a worried look.

She smiled at him. 'Nor me.'

'No, fair dos. You've had a funny old time of it lately. There was poor old what's his name, Lance, bless him, and that barmy old Christmas. I wish you'd tell us what really happened.'

'I know. It's just, the things I've seen, sometimes I think I'm going mad. I mean, even tonight I was in a . . . doesn't matter.' How could she tell him what she'd seen?

'Well, you're not yourself, I'll give you that. You just, you seem to be drifting, sweetheart.'

'I'm not drifting . . . I'm waiting.'

'What for?'

'The right man.'

'Same old story. A man!'

They both laughed. 'No, I don't mean like that. But, he's real. I've seen him. I've met him, just once, and then I let him fly away.'

'Well, there you are. Go and find him.'

'I've tried,' she said sadly. 'He's nowhere.'

'Oi, not like you to give up. Do you know, I remember when you were about six years old, your mother said no holiday this year. So off you toddled, all on your own and you got on a bus to Strathclyde. Ha! We had the police after you and everything. Ha, where's she gone, then. Where's that girl, hey?'

'You're right. Because he's still out there, somewhere. And I'll find him, Gramps. Even if I have to wait a hundred years, I'll find him.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

'Oi, you two. You're just mad. Do you hear me? Mad! And I'm going to report you for madness,' the plucky journalist called to them as she ran away from Adipose Industries.

'You see, some people just can't take it,' Donna said with a smile. She'd finally found the Doctor.

'No,' the Doctor agreed.

'And some people can. So, then. TARDIS! Come on.' Their reunion had been as mad and as dangerous as their first meeting, and she loved it. She'd never considered herself to be brave, but, like her mother, if someone jumped the queue at the supermarket, she was up for a fight. And tonight, it had been like that, with that Miss Foster trying to turn people into little fat aliens, nobody did that in her town.

When they got to the alleyway where he'd parked the TARDIS, she stopped and looked on in amazement. 'That's my car! That is like destiny. And I've been ready for this.'

She opened the boot of the car, and started taking out bags and suitcases. 'I packed ages ago, just in case. Because I thought, hot weather, cold weather, no weather. He goes anywhere. I've gotta be prepared.'

She started loading the Doctor with her luggage. 'You've got a . . . a hatbox,' he observed, he'd never had a companion that had a hatbox before.

'Planet of the Hats, I'm ready. I don't need injections, do I? You know, like when you go to Cambodia. Is there any of that? Because my friend Veena went to Bahrain, and she . . .' She saw his face and stopped talking. 'You're not saying much.'

'No, it's just. It's a funny old life, in the TARDIS.' After losing Rose, and then having Martha flirting with him, he didn't know if he could take anymore 'domestic'.

'You don't want me,' Donna said sadly, after all she'd done to try and find him.

'I'm not saying that,' he started to explain.

'But you asked me,' she complained. 'Would you rather be on your own?' He must have gotten used to travelling on his own after losing Rose, she thought.

'No . . . Actually, no . . . But the last time, with Martha, like I said, it . . . it got complicated, and that was all my fault, I just want a mate.

Donna was shocked. 'You just want to mate?'

'I just want a mate!' he said hurriedly.

'You're not mating with me, sunshine!' A young, fit man, travelling on his own, he must be sexually frustrated.

'A mate. I want A mate,' he reiterated.

'Well, just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonsense,' she said defiantly. 'I mean, you're just a long streak of nothing . . . you know, alien nothing.'

The Doctor mentally breathed a sigh of relief. 'There we are, then . . . Okay.'

'I can come?'

'Yeah. Course you can, yeah. I'd love it,' he said with a grin.

'Oh, that's just . . .' She was so excited, and relieved at the same time, she nearly hugged and kissed him, when she realised that she'd overlooked one little detail. 'Car keys.'

'What?'

'I've still got my mum's car keys . . . I won't be a minute.' She ran out of the alleyway onto Brook Street. The Doctor started taking her luggage into the TARDIS, including the hatbox.

Donna took out her mobile and phoned her mum. 'I know, Mum, I saw it, little fat people. Listen, I've got to go, I'm going to stay with Veena for a bit.'

'It was in the sky!' Sylvia exclaimed.

'Yeah, I know, spaceship, but, I've still got the car keys. Look, there's a bin on Brook Street, about thirty feet from the corner. I'm going to leave them in there.'

'What . . . a bin?' Sylvia asked in confusion.

'Yes, that's it, bin.'

'But you can't do that,' she said in complaint, what was she thinking?

Donna rolled her eyes. 'Oh, stop complaining. The cars just down the road a bit. Got to go . . . really . . . got to go, bye.'

'But Donna, you can't . . .' Donna hung up the call. Would her mum be able to find the keys? She'd better have a backup plan for her she decided, and went to a crowd of people at the police cordon, where she spotted a blonde woman in a nice blue leather jacket.

'Listen; there is this woman that's going to come along. A tall blond woman called Sylvia. Tell her that bin there, all right? It'll all make sense. That bin there,' she said, pointing to the bin before heading back to the alleyway.

'Off we go, then,' she said

'Here it is . . . the TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside,' he said trying to give her the sales pitch.

'Oh, I know that bit, although frankly, you could turn the heating up.'

'So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?'

'Oh, I know exactly the place.'

'Which is?'

'Two and a half miles that way.'

'Hmmm, okay then, two and a half miles that way it is.' He started the time rotor, and they felt a gentle swaying sensation as the TARDIS moved through conventional space, before coming to a stop.

'There you are then,' he said, nodding at the doors.

'Wha? I just open the doors?'

He smiled at her. 'Yeah . . . off you go.'

She walked down the ramp, pulled the door open, and gasped in amazement. There, stretched out before her was the London nightscape, a spider's web of amber street lights, the white and red moving lights of vehicles, and subtle shades of light from the windows of houses. And on the dark allotment, on the hill by their home, was the dimly visible outline of her grandfather.

She saw him look in her direction, and then stoop down to look through his telescope. She started waving, a wave that wouldn't stop, she was SO happy. She saw him hop from leg to leg in excitement and punch the air, was that a whistle and cheering she could hear? He was as happy as she was that she had finally found the man she was looking for.

After having a little wave at the man he was sure he'd seen in a little kiosk, selling newspapers, the Doctor went back to the console and activated the door lock mechanism, and started to put the TARDIS into the Vortex. As he made his way around the console, he nearly tripped over Donna's luggage.

'Blimey, we'd better find you a room to put all this stuff in before I trip over it and cause a paradox.'

'How many rooms have you got in this thing?' she asked him, looking around the console room and spotting an opening into a corridor beyond.

'No idea . . . hundreds of years of living here, and I've never counted,' he said with a cheeky smile. 'There's plenty of guest rooms though, so let's see what the TARDIS has got for you.'

'What'cha mean, 'see what the TARDIS has got for me'?'

He picked up some of the cases and waggled his eyebrows. 'You'll see, c'mon.'

After Donna had settled into her room on the TARDIS, which looked just like her bedroom back home, they had a cup of tea in the kitchen, before heading back to the console room.

'So . . . where do you want to go for your first trip?' he asked with raised eyebrows.

'I don't know, what do you recommend?'

'Oof,' he said, rubbing the back of his neck. 'There's the whole of time and space to choose from . . .' He was trying to think of somewhere where he hadn't taken Rose. He'd already tried visiting their old favourites with Martha, and that hadn't ended well.

Donna remembered that her dad used to say 'veni, vide, vici,' when he came from a football match where West Ham had won. 'What about ancient Rome, y'know, when all those ruins weren't ruins?'

Ah, that was awkward. He'd done ancient Rome with Rose, when Mickey had found a statue of the goddess Fortuna in the British Museum that was modelled by Rose. But, there again, Donna didn't seem to have a crush on him, in fact she didn't seem to have a romantic bone in her body, so maybe ancient Rome would be okay.

'Er, yeah . . . okay, ancient Rome. Why not?' As long as he avoided the year 120, they should be fine. He set the coordinates, and flew the TARDIS to Rome, in the year 79 AD . . . or so he thought.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, and lifted a cloth that was draped over a pole, separating the alcove from the street. 'Ancient Rome,' he said with a big grin, walking down the street. 'Well, not for them, obviously. To all intents and purposes, right now, this is brand new Rome.'

'Oh, my God, it's, it's so Roman,' Donna said, looking around. She stopped and smiled at him. 'This is fantastic.' She hugged him around the neck, and he had a little laugh.

'I'm here, in Rome . . . Donna Noble in Rome. This is just weird, I mean, everyone here's dead.'

He looked around at the bustling people. 'Well, don't tell them that.' When he turned back to her, she had her head on one side, looking past his shoulder.

'Hold on a minute, that sign over there's in English.' She was reading an advertising board, painted on the side of a barrow which said 'two amphorae for the price of one'.

'Are you having me on? Are we in Epcot?' she asked him, feeling disappointed that they weren't actually in ancient Rome.

'No, no, no, no. That's the TARDIS translation circuits, just makes it look like English . . . speech as well. You're talking Latin right now.'

'Seriously?'

'Mmm.'

'I just said seriously in Latin.'

'Oh, yeah,' he said with a grin.

'What if I said something in actual Latin, like veni, vidi, vici? My dad said that when he came back from football. If I said veni, vidi, vici to that lot, what would it sound like?'

'I'm not sure,' he said with a frown. He'd never heard how he sounded to others when the TARDIS translated. 'You have to think of difficult questions, don't you?'

'I'm going to try it,' she said with a hint of mischief in her voice. She ambled over to a fruit seller, who had a barrow in the street.

'Afternoon, sweetheart. What can I get you, my love?' That was weird, he sounded just like a Cockney barrow boy in Spitalfields Market.

'Er, veni, vidi, vici.'

'Eh? Sorry?' he said, looking puzzled. And then he did something that any Cockney barrow boy would do when confronted with a foreigner, he started to speak slowly, enunciating each word, in the mistaken belief that it would somehow translate what he was saying. 'Me no speak Celtic . . . no can do, missy.'

'Yeah,' she said, in a way that inferred that he was a Denarius short of a full Sestertius.

She walked back over to the Doctor. 'How's he mean, Celtic?'

'Welsh . . . You sound Welsh . . . there we are, learnt something,' he said, and they wandered off down the street.

Donna was looking at all the citizens, dressed in robes and other, well, Roman looking clothing. 'Don't our clothes look a bit odd?'

'Nah. Ancient Rome, anything goes. It's like Soho, but bigger.' The city was used to travellers from far off lands, and different styles of dress were not uncommon. He remembered when he'd been here with Rose, or to be more accurate, would be here with Rose in thirty nine years time; he'd worn a plain white tunic so that he would blend in with the crowd and try and find the sculptor of the statue of Fortuna.

'You've been here before then?'

'Mmm, ages ago,' he told her, meaning ages ago in his personal timeline, not in Earth history timeline. It was all a bit timey-wimey.

'Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me . . . well, a little bit. But I haven't got the chance to look around properly.' Today he was a tourist, and he wanted to enjoy a bit of sightseeing. 'Coliseum . . . Pantheon . . . Circus Maximus, you'd expect them to be looming by now. Where is everything?' he asked as they walked through an archway onto another street. 'Try this way.'

They were on a wider street now, and they could get a look at the surrounding scenery. 'Not an expert, but there's Seven Hills of Rome, aren't there? How come they've only got one?' Donna asked.

At that moment, the ground started to tremble.

'Here we go again,' one of the market traders called out, hanging onto his cart.

Donna started to put two and two together. 'Wait a minute, one mountain, with smoke, which makes this . . .'

The Doctor added them together and made four. 'Pompeii . . . We're in Pompeii . . . And it's volcano day.'

* * *

"Oh great!" the Doctor thought, as he led Donna into the Pyrovillian escape pod. "That's another fine mess the TARDIS has gotten me into". The Pyroviles, were a silicon based life form that had lain dormant under Mount Vesuvius for thousands of years, after crash landing. The dust of their bodies was like individual cells, which had invaded the bodies of some of the local carbon based lifeforms, transforming them into Pyroviles.

'Could we be any more trapped?' Donna said as he sonicked the door shut. One of the Pyroviles breathed fire on the pod, and the interior got a little uncomfortable. 'Little bit hot.'

The Doctor was examining the control panel of the pod. 'See, the energy converter takes the lava, uses the power to create a fusion matrix, which welds Pyrovile to human. Now it's complete, they can convert millions.'

'Well can't you change it, with these controls?'

'Of course I can,' he said with urgency in his voice. 'But don't you see? That's why the soothsayers can't see the volcano . . . there is no volcano. Vesuvius is never going to erupt. The Pyrovile are stealing all its power. They're going to use it to take over the world.'

'But you can change it back,' Donna said, more of a statement than a question.

'I can invert the system, set off the volcano, and blow them up, yes,' he said, and then stopped. He'd been in a situation like this before, when he'd been a renegade, and the decision he'd made nearly destroyed him. It was only the love of a pink and yellow girl that had saved him.

He looked into her eyes, trying to convey the horror of the situation. 'But, that's the choice, Donna. It's Pompeii or the world.'

'Oh, my God.' She certainly got the full horror of it all. She wondered how he lived with himself when he had to make decisions like this.

'If Pompeii is destroyed then it's not just history . . . it's me.' His voice sounded ancient and weary, his eyes looked beyond the walls of the pod, beyond time itself. 'I make it happen,' he realised.

'Doctor, the Pyrovile are made of rocks. Maybe they can't be blown up,' she said worriedly.

He knew better. 'Vesuvius explodes with the force of twenty four nuclear bombs, nothing can survive it.' There was something else, something he was reluctant to mention, after all, it was only her first trip. 'Certainly not us.'

Donna swallowed, her breath caught in her chest as her heart missed a beat. Oh God, this was nothing like having a go at a queue jumper in Tesco. There again, maybe it was, just on a different scale. An insensitive bully is an insensitive bully no matter what. When the stakes were this high, someone had to make a stand, she just hoped her mum and granddad would be proud of her.

'Never mind us,' she said in a quiet, resigned voice.

He stood there, just staring into her eyes. At that moment, she reminded him so much of Rose. 'Push this lever and it's over . . . Twenty thousand people,' he whispered as he put his hands on the stone lever.

Donna put her hands over his, and they looked at each other. He suddenly had a flashback of a memory . . . or was it a flash-forward of a premonition? It was difficult to tell when your life didn't follow a linear path. He was standing in front of an ornately crafted box, with his hand on a big red button. Two other people were with him, he couldn't see their faces, but he knew they were familiar.

['Pretending you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else.']

['You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right.']

['But this time . . .']

'[You don't have to do it alone.']

They put their hands on his, to ease the burden of what he was about to do.

['Thank you,'] he had said.

['What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way.']

['And it is done in the name of the many lives we are failing to save.']

The memory, premonition was gone and forgotten as quickly as it had arrived, and looking away from each other's eyes to the lever, they pushed it down.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

They ran into the house of Caecilius where the TARDIS was parked.

'Gods save us, Doctor,' Caecilius called out from where he and his family were cowering in a corner.

The Doctor stopped and looked at the terrified, pleading faces of this ordinary family, caught up in these extraordinary events. Were these the faces he would have seen on Gallifrey, when he pressed that big red button? He had been given this opportunity to look upon the consequences of his actions, and it filled him with guilt, remorse, and anger that he couldn't change a fixed point in time.

Once again he was all fire and ice and rage. Like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, ancient and forever. Burning at the centre of time, seeing the turn of the universe . . . He was terrifying, and he was impotent. He couldn't bear to see those eyes looking at him; he turned and ran into the TARDIS.

'NO!' Donna screamed after him. 'Doctor, you can't.' She looked over at the family, who were waiting to die. 'DOCTOR!'

A large boulder flew through the window as she heard the engines start up, reluctantly, she ran into the TARDIS.

'You can't just leave them!' she shouted angrily from the doors.

'Don't you think I've done enough?' he said sharply. 'History's back in place and everyone dies.' He didn't look up from the console; he didn't want to see the look of loathing that would be in her eyes.

'You've got to go back. Doctor, I am telling you, take this thing back.' The TARDIS lurched, and then stabilised. 'It's not fair,' she quietly cried.

'No, it's not,' he agreed, still not able to meet her gaze.

'But your own planet . . . it burned.'

That hit a raw nerve; he'd just seen the consequences of what he had done, then and now. Finally, he looked up from the console, and let her see the anguish that burned in his soul. 'That's just it. Don't you see, Donna? Can't you understand? If I could go back and save them, then I would. But I can't.' His voice almost broke with emotion, and then he shouted. 'I can never go back. I can't. I just can't, I can't.'

'Just someone . . . Please . . . Not the whole town, just save someone,' she sobbed.

Their eyes met across the console, and for a moment, he was looking into the eyes of his lost love, Rose. Those eyes, which showed her disappointment in him for not saving anyone today, eyes filled with sorrow and pleading. Those eyes faded, and once again he was looking into the tear filled eyes of Donna.

And then suddenly, and without warning, he remembered the Daniels family in Southampton, in 1912. He had bought their ticket off them so that they didn't travel on the Titanic . . . wasn't this the same, couldn't he save just one family so that their faces didn't haunt his nightmares.

He reversed the controls, and the TARDIS lurched back into 79 A.D Pompeii. He silently looked up at Donna, his face impassive, his jaw set. He was taking a big risk, interfering with a fixed point in time, especially as it was a fixed point of his doing. He walked down the ramp and opened the door onto a scene of impending doom. The sky outside was as dark as midnight, dust and ash hung in the air.

He held out his hand. 'Come with me,' he said quietly. Caecilius reached out and clasped his hand, pulling his family to their feet and their salvation. They stepped inside the TARDIS, and if they thought Vesuvius erupting was a shock, well, this was just as bad.

'By the Gods!' Caecilius's wife Metella said. 'Are all temples and shrines bigger on the inside?'

The Doctor didn't answer; he didn't want to contaminate the timeline any more than it already was. He walked up the ramp and started the time rotor, setting the coordinates to land the TARDIS on a hill overlooking Pompeii. He walked past them down the ramp and opened the door, where they looked out on a scene of utter devastation, as pyroclastic flows covered the city with ash that would hide it for nearly two thousand years.

'It's never forgotten, Caecilius,' the Doctor told him. 'Oh, time will pass . . . men'll move on, and stories will fade. But one day . . . Pompeii will be found again. In thousands of years . . . And everyone will remember you.'

'What about you, Evelina? Can you see anything?' Donna asked their daughter, who had been a soothsayer.

'The visions have gone.'

'The explosion was so powerful it cracked open a rift in time, just for a second. That's what gave you the gift of prophecy. It echoed back into the Pyrovillian alternative. But not any more. You're free.'

'But tell me,' a quiet, emotional voice asked. 'Who are you, Doctor? With your words and your temple containing such size within?'

'Oh, I was never here. Don't tell anyone,' he whispered.

'The great god Vulcan must be enraged,' Caecilius said in anger. 'It's so volcanic . . . it's like some sort of volcano.' His voice broke with emotion. 'All those people,' he sobbed, as Metella hugged him and wept.

The Doctor looked at Donna, and they silently headed back into the TARDIS

'Thank you,' Donna said.

'Yeah,' he said as he set the controls on the console. He looked up at her. 'You were right . . . Sometimes I need someone . . . Welcome aboard.'

'Yeah.'

They smiled at each other as he started the time rotor. He'd found someone who could keep his moral compass aligned. She wasn't Rose, and he didn't want her to be, no one would be able to fill Rose's shoes and mend his broken hearts, but she was good company, and she had shown that she was made of the right stuff.

And while he was thinking of Rose, what did Lucius mean when he had said 'she was returning?' Did he mean Rose? No, it couldn't be, she was lost to him in another universe, the breach was sealed, forever.

['How long are you going to stay with me?']

['Forever.']

Donna on the other hand, didn't feel as though she was made of the right stuff. She had just watched in fascinated horror, as twenty thousand people were incinerated by red hot ash, and her brain couldn't accept it. How did the Doctor cope with seeing that kind of thing? She recalled the conversation they'd had in the escape pod.

['But if it's aliens setting off the volcano, doesn't that make it alright for you to stop it?'] She'd asked him.

['Still part of history.']

['But I'm history to you. You saved me in 2008. You saved us all. Why is that different?'] She couldn't see why one was alright to meddle with, and one wasn't.

['Some things are fixed, some things are in flux. Pompeii is fixed.']

['How do you know which is which?'] She'd asked him, not realising that it was like trying to explain colours to a blind person, or the sound of birdsong to someone who was deaf.

['Because that's how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not. That's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna. And I'm the only one left.']

She had heard the anguish in his voice. ['How many people died?']

['Stop it,'] he'd said angrily, it was too many.

['Doctor, how many people died?']

['Twenty thousand,'] he'd told her, and she heard the sadness, regret, and the guilt in his voice.

['Is that what you can see, Doctor? All twenty thousand? And you think that's alright, do you?'] She knew now that he didn't think it was alright, that it was far from alright, but what choice did he have? Twenty thousand now or billions in the future; the human race eradicated by being transformed into living volcanic lava.

It was then that she started to understand what he was on about; she was still here, she wouldn't even have existed if he hadn't blown up Vesuvius, so from her point of view, he had already done it. All the times she'd heard about Pompeii and Vesuvius, she'd been hearing about herself and the Doctor without knowing it.

'Oh this is doin' my head in,' she said out loud.

He looked up from the console. 'You alright?'

'What, me? Just fine and dandy thank you,' she said sarcastically. 'I mean, I've just seen first hand, an event that I learned about at school, saw on documentaries, and read about in books, and now I find out that I helped it happen. I mean, it's just . . . mental.'

Ah, she was in time shock. He smiled as he remembered Rose's first time shock. They had been on Platform One, in the year five point five, slash apple, slash twenty six, and she had seen the Earth consumed by fire. He knew what Donna needed; he adjusted the controls on the console, and landed the TARDIS.

'Come and have a look,' he said as he walked down the ramp, and stepped outside. Donna followed him, and was immediately hit by a wall of noise. Car horns, people calling to each other, a dog barking, in a busy town square with shops and market stalls.

'Where are we?'

'Pompei, one 'i' this time, not two,' he told her.

'Eh?'

'Modern Pompei, they rebuilt it in 1891, and now it's a busy, teeming metropolis and tourist attraction.' They started strolling down the street.

'But it was only moments ago that we were here in the year seventy nine, it doesn't seem real,' she said.

'Mornin', sweetheart. What can I get you, darlin'?' a fruit seller asked her as they walked past.

She looked at the trader, open mouthed in amazement at the similarity between this trader and the one in seventy nine. When she looked at the Doctor, he was grinning at her and waggled his eyebrows. She looked back at the trader with a lopsided smile.

'Veni . . . vidi . . . vici,' she said saucily.

'Ah, inglese,' the man said. 'My English is not good.' Which the TARDIS unhelpfully translated as 'scusate il mio inglese non è buono.'

'Ooh, it works the other way around as well,' the Doctor said with raised eyebrows.

'I've got no money on me, mate,' Donna said, slapping her trousers to show she had nothing in her pockets.

The trader picked up a rosy red apple off his display and held it up. 'Then I trade, one apple for a kiss from the lovely lady.'

Donna turned to the Doctor, and gave him her "he asked for it" look. The Doctor stifled a laugh, as she grabbed the front of the trader's apron and pulled him forwards.

'Come here Romeo,' she said as she pulled him into a full on tongue tango. The man's eyes went wide in disbelief, and his arms flapped ineffectually out to his sides, as Donna's other hand wrapped around the back of his neck, pulling him harder into the snog.

She eventually released him, and he staggered back with a gasp. She took the apple out of his hand and bit into it, winking at him as she did. The Doctor tilted his head back and laughed out loud.

'Hah! Pompeian's . . . Brilliant, all twenty five thousand of 'em. Each one a living tribute to those who went before.' He looked at Donna. 'Feeling better then?'

She grinned at him, chewing the apple. 'Yeah, much better thanks . . . It's sort of put things into perspective for me.' She had a sad, thoughtful look on her face.

'We all lose people, I lost my dad . . .; you lost Rose.' He was about to protest, but she put a hand up to stop him and continued. 'I know she's not dead, and that must be such a comfort to you, and a torture at the same time, knowing you'll never be able to see her again.'

She took a deep, cleansing breath and smiled. 'But life goes on, and those twenty thousand people have become twenty five, and all six billion of us are here because of them . . . and because of you.'

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and smiled warmly. 'Donna Noble, you're quite the philosopher. You must come to ancient Greece and meet a friend of mine, Socrates. Great bloke, good thinker, but a bit evasive when it came to answering questions.'

'Taught you then did he?' she said sarcastically.

'Oi, I'm not evasive, I'm avoiding paradoxes by not giving away information about future events,' he said defensively.

Donna linked arms with him and grinned. 'You're evasive, admit it. You're so slippery; you make eels look like they're covered in glue.'

'Slippery?'

'C'mon my slippery, skinny, spaceman, are you gonna show me the whole of time an' space, or what?' She tugged his arm and started walking back towards the TARDIS and then stopped, sniffing the air.

'Oh, can you smell pizza?'

'Yeah,' he replied, sniffing the air with her. 'Yeah.'

'I want a pizza, a proper, genuine, Italian pizza.'

'Me too,' he said with a smile.

'Right then Sonny Jim, before you get me back in that mad box of yours, pizza it is, and you can pay, 'cos I ain't got no Lira.'

The Doctor laughed at the memory of a similar situation after Rose's first journey. 'Me neither.'

'Well use your bleepy thing on the hole in the wall then, like you did when we first met.'

'That was an emergency, this is . . . lunch. You want me to steal money to buy lunch?'

'This is an emergency, 'cos someone's gonna die if I don't get a pizza soon,' she said menacingly, and then thought about it. 'Anyway, none of this would even be here if it wasn't for you washin' those spiders down the plug hole, or blowin' up those Pyro-thingies. I reckon the planet owes you a pizza at least.'

He slowly nodded his head, a far away look in his eyes as he remembered a conversation Rose had with her mum.

['Mum, I've had a life with you for nineteen years, but then I met the Doctor, and all the things I've seen him do for me, for you, for all of us. For the whole stupid planet and every planet out there. He does it alone, Mum, but not anymore, because now he's got me.']

Yes, he thought, using his psychic paper to get free travel on public transport, and entry to events like Live Aid or the Olympic Games was a fair trade for all that he had done "for the whole stupid planet". And "bleeping" an ATM to get a bit of cash for a bit of lunch wouldn't be stealing, would it? It would be payment for services rendered, and a bargain to boot.

He reached inside his jacket and took out his "bleepy thing". 'C'mon then, lunch is on me.'


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

After a very enjoyable pizza in a local restaurant, they meandered through the streets of Pompei back towards the TARDIS. In his usual, alien way, the Doctor asked her if she wanted to see the tourist attractions while they were here.

But for Donna, it no longer held the macabre fascination of an event that happened nearly 2000 years ago. What if she walked down one of the ancient streets and saw one of those eerie figures where the fruit vendor had first spoken to her? She would be forever wondering if it was actually him.

As they reached the TARDIS, she looked back at the busy town square with its shops and market stalls, and its thriving population. This is how she wanted to remember Pompei, and in that moment, she had a brief insight into why she thought the Doctor never looked back.

She followed him up the ramp towards the console, smiling as he threw his long coat over the coral strut in his usual fashion. His steps bounced with energy and eagerness to move on and explore.

He started up the Time Rotor, and put them into the Vortex. 'Right then, where next? Let's have a look and see what's occurring out there.' He squared up to the monitor and tapped a few keys. 'Ooh, hold on . . . that's not right.'

He took his spectacles out of his pocket and put them on, leaning closer to the monitor.

'What is it, what's not right?' Donna asked, looking at the swirly, rotating concentric circles on the screen.

'The time line has been changed. It's as though a thousand years of progress never happened.'

Donna frowned. 'But it looked all right when we were out there just a minute ago. I mean there were cars and shops and banks and stuff.'

'Yeah I know, but that was before the ripple had spread out. Now we're in the Vortex, outside of time, the ripple has passed us by and we can see the change.'

'Well can you fix it?'

The Doctor looked up from the monitor and gave her a big grin. 'Course I can, I'm brilliant me.' He started orbiting the console making adjustments. 'Can't fix it at the source though, I'll have to follow the ripple forward to a causal nexus point.'

Donna put her hands on her hips and tilted her head sideways. 'And in English, that means . . . ?'

'It means get your coat 'cos it's mid February out there and it's been snowing,' he said as he shut down the console.

'So where are we now?' Donna asked as she stepped out of the TARDIS, pulling the hood up on her parka and looking around the snow dusted landscape. Her gaze halted on the medieval castle in the middle distance.

'Paderborn, eastern North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany,' the Doctor replied.

'Ooh, I've never been to Germany before. So what's here then?'

'Not much at the moment, being 799 AD. Just the castle and a small hamlet, but I've got a message to give to a man who lives in the castle.'

'Who's that then?' Donna asked as she linked arms with him and started strolling along the cobbled road.

'A chap called Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great, king of the Franks.'

'Hang on; I remember hearing about him at school . . . can't remember anythin' about him though.'

'A great bloke. He became the father of Europe. At this royal court, he gathered the cream of available intellect, centred around the scholar Alcuin, whom he brought from York. Monks and other copyists were set to transcribing ancient manuscripts, both classical and Christian, for the preservation and extension of learning,' the Doctor enthused. He was obviously a fan.

'Schools were established at monasteries and cathedrals, the forerunners of the great universities. Myriad hymns and poems were composed, along with commentaries on Holy Scripture, treatises on music, theological works, and numerous chronicles of history.'

'Blimey, I don't remember any of that,' Donna told him.

'Shame on you,' he teased before continuing. 'Advances were made in architecture at Aachen and Ingelheim. Oh, and technology! Let's not forget the iron horseshoe and the padded harness for ploughing with horses.'

'How could I possibly forget that? I never knew about it in the first place.'

'And agriculture,' he said, ignoring her sarcasm. 'The system of triple crop rotation was thought of here. Under his leadership, there arose a cultural enrichment still known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Although the political unity Charlemagne imposed on the greater part of the continent didn't outlive him, the cultural unity of Europe does.'

'A bit of a player then. So what's the message?'

'Ah, now that's a bit tricky', he said as they approached the large wooden gates studded with metal. 'A bit timey-wimey,' he added, scratching the back of his head.

Before Donna could ask him why he was talking like a child, he banged his palm on the door that was set into one of the large gates.

'HELLO! Any one in?' he called out. From the other side of the door, there came the sound of footsteps on the flagstones. A small wooden panel opened in the door, and a flat, angular face appeared in the square aperture that looked every bit like Lurch from the Addams Family.

'Yes?' the face asked in a gruff voice that sounded like he ate gravel for breakfast.

'We come from Rome bearing news of the pope. We must speak with the king most urgently,' the Doctor said, reaching into his pocket and holding the psychic paper up to the face.

'Er, I'm sorry sire; although Brother Michael's teaching is very good, and he does his best, I'm afraid I'm not yet able to read anything too complicated.'

The Doctor lowered the paper and frowned. 'Y'know, I never thought about that before.'

'Had your bit of paper been about a cat sitting on a mat, then I may have been able to help you,' the face added helpfully. Donna unsuccessfully tried to suppress a giggle.

'Perhaps then you could summon Brother Michael and he could read our credentials.'

The face at the aperture thought about this for a moment before coming to a decision. 'I will see if I can find him.'

'Yes please,' Donna said, stamping her feet to get some warmth in them. 'Quick as you can, there's a good lad. It's a bit parky out here.'

The wooden panel closed, and the footsteps hurried away.

'So what news are we bringing?' Donna asked, feeling left out of the proceedings.

'Well, originally Pope Leo III invites Charlemagne to Rome to celebrate Christmas with him, where he crowns him Roman emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.'

'That's a bit of an extravagant Christmas present,' said Donna.

'Yeah, but now the time line has changed, Leo gets set upon by a bunch of thugs, Charlie boy storms into Rome and starts a fight, and Europe stays in the dark ages for centuries longer than it should do.'

They heard hurrying footsteps returning to the door, and a new face appeared in the aperture; a face with kind eyes and a serene smile.

The Doctor held up the psychic paper. 'Brother Michael I presume.'

Brother Michael's eyes went wide with surprise. 'Oh my. Claus, quickly, open the door.'

Bolts were drawn back, and the door opened with a creak of hinges. 'Father John, Sister Donna, please come in, come in.' The monk ushered them through the door.

'Sister?' Donna started to ask.

'Ah, thank you Brother Michael. Very kind,' the Doctor interrupted.

'Had I known the papal emissary was coming . . .' the monk said, bowing and scraping.

'You'd have blown our cover,' the Doctor said as he held the monk's shoulders to stop him bowing. 'We have important news for the king.'

'Of course, he's in his apartments; I'll take you to him straight away.'

They were led through the castle's hallways, up staircases, and along galleries until they came to an ornately carved, arched door. Brother Michael knocked on the door.

'My Lord, a papal emissary from Rome has arrived and seeks an audience with your highness.'

'Pray enter,' a deep voice called out from behind the door.

The room that Brother Michael ushered the Doctor and Donna into was large with a homely feel to it, due in part to the roaring fire in the large, stone fireplace. There were dark oak chairs and sofas with deep red velvet upholstery, along with dark oak dressers and sideboards.

The grey stone walls were draped with tapestries that added to the homely feel. A tall man rose from a high backed chair, and turned to face them. He placed his hands behind his back to enjoy the warmth of the fire.

'Your Highness, may I present Father John and Sister Donna, emissaries from Pope Leo in Rome,' Brother Michael said.

Charlemagne had dark, shoulder length hair and a full beard that was flecked with grey. His eyes were bright and alert, and his mouth was quick to break into a smile. Donna thought that his appearance resembled that of the actor Christopher Lee.

'King Charlemagne, what a pleasure to meet you. I've been a great admirer of your work for ages,' the Doctor said, shaking the king's hand enthusiastically.

The king's eyebrows were raised in surprise as he appraised his visitors. 'Father John, Sister Donna? You are the most unusual looking cardinal and nun I have ever seen.'

'Nun? Sister? What's everyone on about?' Donna asked in confusion. There was no way she thought you could confuse her with a nun.

The Doctor tapped his pocket where the wallet of psychic paper lived to give her a clue. 'We have travelled incognito to bring you news of a plot to discredit and harm the pope.'

Charlemagne's face became stony, his eyes like ice. 'Come, please sit and tell me what you know.'

They sat around the fire, and Donna finally learned what the Doctor had seen on the TARDIS monitor.

'Prompted by jealousy or ambition or by feelings of hatred and revenge, a number of the relatives of Pope Adrian I have formed a plot to render Leo unfit to hold his sacred office,' the Doctor explained.

Charlemagne was aghast. 'How dare they! Tell me, what do they propose to do?'

'On the occasion of the procession of the Greater Litanies on the 25th of April, when the pope makes his way towards the Flaminian Gate, he will be attacked by a body of armed men. They will attempt to root out his tongue and tear out his eyes.'

'Ugh, that's horrible,' said Donna.

'Horrible indeed,' Charlemagne agreed. 'Not to mention blasphemous. I'll have Adrian's head for this.'

'Well, yes you could, but Adrian and his followers will have made sure that there is no connection between them and the attackers. If you were to take action against them, you would be seen as the aggressor,' the Doctor advised.

Charlemagne was fuming. 'I cannot let this plot go unpunished.'

'No, you cannot,' the Doctor agreed. 'But there are different punishments.'

The king nodded sagely. 'Tell me Father, what do you have in mind?'

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, the Time Rotor pumped up and down with its familiar grinding wheeze. The Doctor was moving from section to section, making adjustments. Donna looked at the monitor, trying to make sense of what it was showing her.

'So Charlemagne sends a few of his boys to rescue Leo then?' she asked.

'Yeah, although he still gets clobbered and roughed up a bit. The Duke of Spoleto gives him shelter and helps him get to Paderborn. When he arrives, he'll be received with the greatest honour at the castle.'

'And that got the time-line back on track did it?'

'Eventually. His enemies had accused Leo of adultery and perjury. Charlemagne orders them to Paderborn, but no decision can be made. He then has Leo escorted back to Rome. In November 800, Charlemagne himself goes to Rome, and on 1 December holds a council there with representatives of both sides. Leo, on 23 December, takes an oath of purgation concerning the charges brought against him, and his opponents are exiled. Two days after Leo's oath, on Christmas Day 800, he crowns Charlemagne as Roman emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.'

'So all's well that ends well,' said Donna, but frowned in thought. 'But how come it all went wrong in the first place?'

'Ah well, that was all to do with Pompeii,' he said with a raised eyebrow.

'Pompeii?'

'Four people survived the volcano that hadn't survived originally. Caecilius and Metela's children, Quintus and Evelina had children of their own, who had children, who had children, and so on. They spread out like ripples on a pond, ripples through time. Some of those descendants ended up as disgruntled relatives of the former Pope Adrian I.'

Realisation dawned on Donna. 'Oh my God, it was me! I made you go back and save them.' She was horrified that she'd nearly plunged Europe into an extended barbaric dark age.

'Yeah, I suppose, but things turned out as they should in the end. A quick rewrite of the history books and Bob's your mother's brother.'


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Donna made her way into the kitchen, after a very comfortable nights sleep in her new bed. The Doctor was sitting at the table, drinking tea, and poured her a cup as she entered.

'Morning . . . I haven't made breakfast yet, because I wasn't sure what you liked.'

She smiled at his thoughtfulness. 'I normally just have some toast and a cup of tea.'

'Well that's the tea taken care of; I'll put some bread in the toaster.'

'Oh, I can do it,' she said awkwardly, not wanting to be a burden.

'I know, but it's your first morning in the TARDIS, and there'll be plenty of time for you to find your way around the kitchen later.'

So he made some toast, and they ate it with marmalade, and butter, and jam. When they had drunk their tea, and put everything in the dishwasher, they went through to the console room.

'So, where do you want to go today then?' he asked her with a smile.

'I have absolutely no idea,' she said with a laugh. 'Talk about bein' spoilt for choice. When you are confronted with a choice of any place in the whole universe, yer mind goes blank.'

'Okay, I can relate to that,' he told her. He adjusted the controls, and the TARDIS started to gently rock and sway as it made its way through the Vortex.

'Set the controls to random. Mystery tour. Outside that door could be any planet, anywhere, anywhen in the whole wide u . . .' He noticed that she looked really nervous. 'Are you all right?'

'Terrified. I mean, history's one thing but an alien planet?'

Ah, so that was it, she was in culture shock. Rose had half a dozen journeys into Earth's past and future, before she went to an alien planet. Martha's second journey was to New New Earth, but that didn't really count as it was a human colony.

'I could always take you home,' he offered.

'Yeah, don't laugh at me,' she said in annoyance.

'I know what it's like, everything you're feeling right now. The fear, the joy, the wonder?' he said intensely, and then raised the pitch of his voice. 'I get that.'

'Seriously? After all this time?' she said excitedly.

'Yeah. Why do you think I keep going?'

'Oh, all right then, you and me both, this is barmy.' She stopped halfway down the ramp and turned to face him. 'I was born in Chiswick. I've only ever had package holidays. Now I'm here. This is so . . . I mean it's . . . I don't know, it's all sort of . . . I don't even know what the word is.' She turned around and ran to the door, pulling it open and stepping outside.

'Oh, I've got the word . . . Freezing,' she said as she looked at the frozen landscape.

'Snow!' the Doctor shouted as he stepped out behind her. 'Oh, real snow, proper snow at last . . . That's more like it, lovely, what do you think?'

'Bit cold,' she said quickly as she started to shiver. She was only wearing a thin sleeveless top with her black trousers.

'Look at that view,' he said, looking at massive icicles hang from bridges of rock, spanning vast ravines.

'Yep . . . Beautiful . . . cold view,' she said between chattering teeth.

'Millions of planets, millions of galaxies, and we're on this one. Molto bene. Bellissimo, says Donna, born in Chiswick. All you've got is a life of work and sleep, and telly and rent and tax and takeaway dinners, all birthdays and Christmases and two weeks holiday a year, and then you end up here.' He chatted away as he wandered down the gentle snowy incline. 'Donna Noble, citizen of the Earth, standing on a different planet. How about that Donna?' he said, turning to look at her, but she'd gone.

'Donna?' What was the matter; didn't she like snow? He loved it, all white and fluffy and . . . well, cold.

She came out of the TARDIS in a big winter coat with a fur lined hood. 'Sorry, you were saying?'

'Better?' he asked sarcastically.

'Lovely, thanks,' she said with a happy smile.

'Comfy?'

'Yep.'

'Can you hear anything inside that?'

'Pardon?' she said with an enormous grin.

Oh yes, very clever. 'All right, I was saying, citizen of the Earth . . .'

He was interrupted by a red rocket ship gliding gracefully over their heads.

'Rocket,' she said in awe. 'Blimey, a real proper rocket. Now that's what I call a spaceship.' She slapped his chest. 'You've got a box, he's got a Ferrari. Come on, lets go see where he's going.' She set off enthusiastically in the direction of the impressive ship, leaving the Doctor with a look of rocket envy on his face.

'I bet his isn't bigger on the inside,' he said under his breath as he set off after her.

* * *

The Doctor and Donna watched as the head of the Ood Operations base, Klineman Halpen transformed into an Ood in front of them, having just saved the Ood from being slaughtered by the Ood Operations Corporation security staff.

'He has become Oodkind,' Sigma Ood told them. 'And we will take care of him.'

Donna shook her head, trying to get her thoughts straight. 'It's weird, being with you. I can't tell what's right and what's wrong any more.'

'It's better that way . . . People who know for certain tend to be like Mister Halpen,' the Doctor told her.

There was a beeping sound from the other side of the handrail. 'Oh!' he exclaimed, he'd forgotten about the explosives that had been rigged to blow up the Ood brain in the pit.

He leaned over the handrail and deactivated the timer. 'That's better.' He ran along the walkway and turned to Sigma Ood. 'And now, Sigma . . . would you allow me the honour?'

'It is yours, Doctor,' the Ood said with a bow.

'Oh, yes!' he shouted with glee, turning to the control panel. 'Stifled for two hundred years, but not any more. The circle is broken. The Ood can sing.' He snapped the switch with a flourish, and the blue electric lightning stopped.

'I can hear it!' Donna laughed with joy as a beautiful song of hope, peace, and freedom filled the very air itself.

'Come on,' he said with a smile. 'Let's go and see.'

They made their way up to ground level, and exited the building, where armed guards were lowering their guns and looking around in amazement as they heard the song. It was a hymn . . . a prayer, and it would be sacrilege to defile that beautiful song with violence. The Ood were standing in a circle with their arms raised in salutation.

'That's more like it,' the Doctor said. 'Ood and man, together in peace, as equals.' He had an enormous grin on his face as they strode out into the snow, heading towards the TARDIS. He didn't have days like this very often, and it went some way to make up for not being able to save the citizens of Pompeii.

'The message has gone out . . . that song resonated across the galaxies, everyone heard it, everyone knows,' he said to Sigma and the handful of Oodkind that had come to wish them farewell. 'The rockets are bringing them back . . . the Ood are coming home.'

'We thank you, Doctor Donna, friends of Oodkind. And what of you now? Will you stay? There is room in the song for you,' Sigma told them.

'Oh, I've, I've . . . sort of got a song of my own, thanks.'

'I think your song must end soon,' Sigma said, a hint of sadness in his electronic voice.

'Meaning?' he asked, not liking the menace implied in that statement.

'Every song must end,' Sigma said enigmatically.

'Yeah,' he said with a frown. He turned to Donna 'Uhm, what about you? You still want to go home?' he asked quietly. She had been upset when she found out that humans in the second great and bountiful human empire of the forty second century were no better than the humans in the twenty first century. They may have spread across three galaxies, but they could still be barbaric.

'No . . . definitely not.' She'd heard the Ood song, she had felt the forgiveness of Oodkind, and she had seen the guilt and regret of the humans in the warehouse; it renewed her belief that despite the few bad people around, goodness and decency would prevail.

'Then we'll be off,' he said to the Ood.

The Ood raised their hands and began to sing again. 'Take this song with you.'

'We will,' Donna said, touched by their kind offer.

'Always,' the Doctor said.

'And know this, Doctor Donna, you will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the Doctor Donna, and our children's children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever.'

The Doctor smiled, and gently guided Donna up the slope to the TARDIS, neither of them realising that Sigma Ood was only referring to one of them when he said Doctor Donna.

Donna walked up the ramp, humming the Ood song of freedom, when she noticed it was echoing in her head.

'Hang on,' she said, turning to look at the Doctor, who was walking up the ramp behind her. 'Can you hear that, y'know, the tune in your head?'

He smiled at her. 'Yeah, it's the TARDIS, she's tuned in to the Ood, picked up the telepathic song, and is relaying it to our thoughts.'

Donna tilted her head to one side and listened to the internal choir of millions of Ood, all harmonising and singing harmonics. It sent a shiver down her spine, and brought tears to her eyes.

'It's so beautiful.'

The Doctor started the time rotor and put the TARDIS into the Vortex. The voices started to fade, but the song lingered in their subconscious.

'Where now?' the Doctor said. He was like a kid at a funfair, trying to decide which ride to go on next. He stood poised, waggling his fingers, his face glowing green in the light from the TARDIS console.

Donna thought he looked like a string bean in a blue suit. A string bean with trainers and sticky-out hair. 'Dunno about you,' she said, 'but I could do with a breather.'

'A breather!' he said, aghast.

'Yeah, we're not all Martians, you know. Us humans need a little sit down and a nice cup of tea every so often.' All at once her eyes widened. 'You know what I'd really like?'

'Astonish me.'

'A curry.'

'A curry?'

'Yeah, I could murder a curry. I'm starving.' She realised that apart from a bit of toast at breakfast, she hadn't eaten all day.

The Doctor looked at her as if she was a prize pupil who had handed in a sub-standard piece of work. Then inspiration struck him, and he was off again, bouncing round the console, slapping and poking and twiddling things.

'Curry, curry, curry,' he muttered. 'If I can just . . . yep, there we go.' The grinding bellow of the TARDIS's engines started up and the Doctor straightened with a grin. 'Donna,' he said, 'prepare yourself for a taste sensation.'

In a narrow alley between two tenement blocks, dust began to swirl. The trumpeting groan of ancient engines rose out of nowhere, and as they built to a crescendo the faded outline of an old blue London police box began to solidify.

'Come on, Donna,' the Doctor shouted as he stepped through the narrow door. 'You were the one who couldn't wait to stuff your face.'

'And you were the one who said I should dress for a hot climate,' she retorted, emerging from the TARDIS in a flowery long-sleeved sundress, sandals and a wide brimmed hat. She looked around. 'Where are we?'

'Calcutta,' he said, '1937. Brilliant city, full of bustle and colour. Still ruled by the British Raj, but it's the heart of India. Centre of education, science, culture, politics—'

'What's that smell?' She was wrinkling her nose.

The Doctor sniffed the air. 'That,' he said, 'is the scent of burning cow dung. Bellisimo. Come on.'

He strode off, Donna hurrying to catch up. She looked around at the shabby tenements with their peeling shutters and corrugated iron roofs. The ground was hard-packed earth. Flies buzzed around her head.

'Not exactly salubrious round here,' she said.

'Well, we don't want to be ostentatious. Don't want to frighten the goats.'

He grinned and she smiled back, linking her arm with his.

'So where you taking me?'

'Select little eatery. Belongs to an old mate of mine – Kam Bajaj. Helped him out once with an infestation of Jakra worms.'

'Wouldn't have thought pest control was your kind of thing,' Donna said.

The Doctor shot her one of his sidelong, raised eyebrow

looks. 'Jakra worms are from the Briss Constellation. They're eight-foot-long carnivores. Imagine a Great White Shark sticking out of a hairy wind sock and you've pretty much got it. Anyway, old Kam said any time I fancied a free dinner . . .'

'Oh, charming,' said Donna. 'Cheap date, am I?'

'That's one advantage, yeah,' the Doctor said, smirking, 'but the food is out of this world. Macher jhol that melts in your mouth, beguni to die for, kati roll, phuchka. And the puddings . . . caramba! Rasagolla, sandesh, mishti doi . . .' He kissed his fingers like a chef.

'Chicken korma and a poppadom'll do me,' Donna said.

'I'll pretend I didn't hear that,' he replied.

He kept up a constant jabber about Calcuttan life, one second talking about the August monsoons, the next about how he was once voted man of the match at the Calcuttan Polo Club. As they passed a group of silent men, some of whom brandished staffs or simply thick branches stripped of leaves, the Doctor raised a hand and called, 'Hello there!'

None of the men answered. One spat on the ground close to the Doctor's feet.

'Probably just shy,' the Doctor muttered as Donna took him by the arm and led him away.

'Blimey, for the biggest genius in the universe you can be incredibly thick sometimes,' she said.

'Oi!' he protested, then asked her more reasonably, 'What do you mean?'

'Just look around you. Even a mere earthling can tell that something's about to kick off here. You can virtually smell the testosterone in the air.'

The Doctor's eyes darted around. 'I suppose the atmosphere is a bit tense,' he admitted.

'Maybe we ought to head back to the TARDIS,' she said, 'settle for the Taj Mahal on Chiswick High Road.'

'Kam's place is only a couple of minutes from here. It's a lot closer than the TARDIS.'

Two minutes later they were standing outside Kam's place, looking up at it in dismay. It had been gutted by fire, the interior nothing more than a burnt-out hollow. Face grim, the Doctor placed his hand on a door frame that was now just so much charcoal.

'No residual heat,' he said. 'This happened a while ago.'

'Two weeks,' said a cracked voice to their left.

Donna looked down. An old man was squatting on his haunches in the shaded doorway of the building next door. He wore nothing but a turban and a pair of loose white cotton trousers. His skin was lined and leathery, and an unkempt grey beard covered the lower half of his face.

The Doctor darted across and squatted beside him. 'What happened?' he asked softly.

The old man shrugged. 'When men fight,' he said, 'their judgement becomes clouded. They bombard their enemies with stones and kerosene bombs and beat them with clubs. But if they cannot find their enemies, they simply destroy whatever is close by. They claim they fight for a just cause, but when the madness takes them they don't care who they hurt.'

'Yeah,' the Doctor murmured, 'I know the type. But what about the people who lived here? Kamalnayan Bajaj and his family?'

'They are gone.'

The Doctor's eyes widened. 'You don't mean . . .?'

The old man shook his head. 'No, no, they are alive and well. But they have fled Calcutta. I don't think they will return.'

'Not to this address anyway,' said the Doctor ruefully. 'But this can't be right. I know for a fact that Kam was here in 1941. I came for Navratri. I brought fireworks.'

'What's Navratri?' Donna asked.

'Hindu festival. Lots of dancing.' Thoughtfully he said, 'So either someone's mucking about with time or . . .' He turned back to the old man. 'What year is this?'

'1947,' the old man said.

'Forty-seven!' the Doctor exclaimed, and jumped to his feet. 'Well, that explains it.'

'Does it?' said Donna.

'Course it does. Think of your history.'

'Believe it or not, I wasn't born in 1947.'

'Not your personal history,' said the Doctor. 'Earth history. Didn't they teach you anything at school?'

Donna gave him a blank look. 'I only liked home economics.'

The Doctor made an exasperated sound. 'Remind me to buy you a set of encyclopaedias for your next birthday.'

'Only if you remind me to punch you in the face,' Donna said.

The Doctor carried on as if she hadn't spoken, talking rapidly, almost in bullet points. 'Last year there was a famine in India. The people got desperate and angry. When the British Raj did nothing to help, the population rioted. Now the Brits are about to give India home rule, but instead of solving the problem it's only making things worse. Different religions are fighting amongst themselves about how to divide up the pie, and Calcutta is at the centre of it. At this moment it's one of the most volatile places on Earth. Thousands have been killed, many more made homeless. It's a massive human tragedy, and I've landed us slap-bang in the middle.'

He looked so anguished that Donna felt compelled to say, 'Well, nobody's perfect.'

He smiled sheepishly. 'The Taj Mahal on Chiswick High Road, you say?'

She nodded. 'There's a pay and display across the road, if you need somewhere to park.'


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

'No,' the Doctor said, speaking quickly now to the Jal Karath alien, 'you don't understand. You really can't do this. Listen to me, Darac-7. You wanted to know what species I was? I'm a Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords. The only survivor of the Last Great Time War. And as a Time Lord I'm telling you that you can't put Mohandas Gandhi into that filthy machine. If you do, you'll tear the timelines apart. You'll plunge this planet, this whole galaxy, into a new Dark Age.'

There was a pause. The young local boy Ranjit stared at the Doctor wide eyed. Finally Darac-7 murmured, 'Is that so?'

'Yes,' said the Doctor firmly, 'it is. So here's what I'll do. I'll make a deal with you. Take me. Take the boy even. But spare Gandhi. For the sake of the planet, let him go.'

There was a long pause. Then the Jal Karath said, 'No.'

The Doctor's eyes widened. 'What do you mean, "no"?'

'I mean no, Doctor. I will not accept your terms. What do I care if this galaxy is torn apart?'

'But . . . you'll be caught up in it,' the Doctor said desperately. 'You'll die along with everyone else.'

'I'm not an idiot, Doctor. We both know that the effects of the time disruption will not be felt immediately. It will spiral slowly down through the causal nexus, unravelling history as it goes. By the time it impacts on this axis point I will be long gone.'

'But . . . your harvest. Your precious warrior army.' The Doctor was referring to the thousands of humans that Darac-Poul-Caparrel-Jal-7 had kidnapped, and would convert into an army of mindless gelem warriors.

The quivering motion that rippled through the weed like body of the Jal Karath was the equivalent of a shrug. 'There are other worlds, other galaxies. Millions of them.' Raising its voice it said, 'Place the old man in the machine.'

'No!' the Doctor yelled, struggling wildly against the iron grip of the gelem. 'No, Darac-7, you can't!'

'Don't concern yourself, Doctor,' said Gandhi as he was led, unresisting, to the cabinet at the back of the room. 'I am not afraid to die. Fear of death makes us devoid of valour and faith.'

'But you're not meant to die now,' said the Doctor, still struggling hopelessly.

Gandhi smiled. 'If God says I am, then I am. Everything is in His hands.'

Gandhi walked across the room, his back straight and his head held high, and stepped into the machine. His face remained serene as levered metal arms swung inwards from each of the four corners of the cabinet and clamped together in the centre, sealing him in.

Instantly, with a rising whine like an accelerating engine, the machine powered up, coloured lights beginning to flow over Gandhi's white-clad form. The Doctor slumped in his captive's immovable grip, his hair flopping over his face as his head drooped forward.

The high-pitched whine of the extraction machine climbed and climbed, building to an ear-splitting crescendo . . . and then suddenly there was a loud bang. A huge shower of sparks erupted out of the top of the cabinet, followed by a thick black cloud of smoke.

The machine itself began to judder, the high-pitched whine to deepen and die as the power seeped away. Inside the machine, apparently unharmed, Gandhi looked around with an expression of mild interest.

The Jal Karath started to thrash and writhe in its web of technology. 'What's happening?' it screamed. 'I feel . . . pain.'

As though their command link had been cut off, the gelem warriors suddenly released the Doctor and Ranjit and stood motionless, their hands dropping to their sides. Slowly the Doctor straightened up and raised his head. There was a grim, knowing look on his face.

'Thought that might happen,' he said quietly. 'I did warn you, Darac-7.'

Whatever fault had caused the extraction machine to overload now seemed to be having a knock-on effect on the rest of the ship's systems. Things were sparking and burning-out all over the place. Thick black smoke was filling the room.

'What did you do, Mr Doctor?' Ranjit asked, ducking as a shower of sparks burst from what looked like a melting metal box close to his head.

'Me? Nothing,' said the Doctor. 'It was Mohandas. He's just too good.'

The levered arms which had clamped Gandhi into the machine now sprang apart, releasing him. Stepping out, he overheard the Doctor's words. 'Good in what sense,

Doctor?'

The Doctor was already darting from one of the ship's failing systems to another, apparently looking for something. Suddenly he exclaimed, 'Aha. You know what this is?'

Both Gandhi and Ranjit shook their heads.

'It's an energy inversion module. And if I just refine the search parameters and set it at maximum . . .' His fingers danced over an array of complex-looking controls, then he stepped back with a satisfied grin. His head whipped round and he stared at Gandhi. 'Sorry, what were you saying?'

'You said Bapu was too good, Mr Doctor,' Ranjit reminded him.

'Oh yeah, he is. Too good, too nice, too pure of heart. You see, the extraction machine works by sucking all the badness out of people, like the juice from a lemon, and storing it to be used later. But now and again someone comes along who hasn't got any badness in them – a genetic anomaly, or just someone with such incredible strength of mind that they've literally willed it away. When that happens – and we're talking . . . ooh, one out of every billion people here – the machine can't cope. It's like trying to boil a kettle with no water in it. Only problem for Darac-7 is that his kettle is linked to every other kitchen appliance, which in turn are linked to him . . .'

They ducked as an almighty explosion to their right scattered burning debris across a wide area. The Jal Karath screamed in pain.

' . . . and I'm afraid that his warranty has just run out,' concluded the Doctor. 'Follow me.'

With the alien craft collapsing in flames around them, the Doctor ran across to the TARDIS. He unlocked the door, bundled Gandhi and Ranjit ahead of him, and then leaped inside, slamming the door.

* * *

Donna opened her eyes and concentrated on trying not to be sick. On all sides of her people were staggering about, looking around in disbelief. Some screamed or burst into tears, unable to cope with the sheer impossibility of instantaneous travel.

Nurse Adelaide Campbell appeared at her shoulder, looking pale. 'Am I dreaming?' she said faintly. 'Or are we really outside?'

Donna looked at the pink and purple sky, beneath which the hills loomed black and forbidding. People were streaming from the cave openings like ants from a disturbed nest, many not even stopping when they were out, but simply running down the rocky slope as if demons were after them.

It would be impossible even for the Doctor, Donna thought, to round all these people up and take them home. She wondered what would become of them, and consoled herself with the thought that at least a long walk back to Calcutta was better than a lonely, terrifying death on a planet millions of miles away.

'Yeah,' she said. 'Yeah, we're outside.'

Adelaide looked at the disc in Donna's hand with an expression of awe. 'What is that device?'

Before Donna could tell her it was a matter relocator that the Doctor had removed from a deactivated gelem, Adelaide's father Sir Edgar appeared with his wife in tow. 'I say,' he said, 'where the devil are we?'

Donna shook her head. 'I've no idea.'

'But how do you propose we get back to Calcutta?' Mary Campbell demanded querulously.

Donna scowled. 'I dunno, do I? Walk, I suppose.'

'Walk?' squawked Mary. 'It could be miles. And it's getting dark. There might be snakes. Perhaps even robbers.'

Donna's temper suddenly flared. 'Yeah, well, if they had any sense they'd run a mile if they saw you coming. I mean, what do you honestly expect me to do, lady? Call a cab? Give you a piggyback? Wave a magic wand?'

Mary looked as if she had stepped into a sudden gale force wind.

'I hardly—' Sir Edgar began, but his voice was drowned out by the familiar wheezing grind of ancient engines.

Donna whirled round, grinning, as the TARDIS materialised. The door opened and the Doctor stuck his head out.

'Anyone need a lift?'

* * *

'This vehicle terminates here,' the Doctor announced. 'Will all passengers please disembark.'

They had already dropped the Campbells off at home. Now they were about to deliver Gandhi, Ranjit and Dr. Edward Morgan back to the camp. For the few minutes duration of the short double trip, the TARDIS had been busier than Donna had ever seen it.

The Doctor also dropped off Gopal, the Jal Karath who was really Veec-Elic-Savareen-Jal-9, had been hiding on Earth to avoid persecution by the corrupt Jal Karath leaders of the eleven hives. He saw no reason why this peace loving alien shouldn't receive political asylum.

The Doctor had spent the journey circling the TARDIS console, checking readings and adjusting things and generally being a bit aloof from all the astonished goggling and incredulous chatter going on below. Donna suspected that the Doctor didn't like having so many people in the TARDIS, even if it was just for a few minutes. She knew that once a job was over he generally preferred to slip quietly away, to move on with as little fuss as possible.

When the Campbells had departed moments earlier, he hadn't got involved in all the hugs and handshakes and goodbyes, but had remained standing at the console, from where he had simply stuck up a hand and shouted a cheery, 'See ya.'

Now they had materialised at the camp, and Donna wondered whether his goodbyes here would be just as perfunctory. However, as soon as he pulled the lever to open the doors he leaped down from the console platform and, tilting his head at Donna as an indication that she should join him, followed his passengers outside.

The TARDIS had landed between two of the medical tents, out of sight of the majority of refugees. The group from the TARDIS looked out across the camp, which, despite the devastation caused by the gelem warriors, was already returning to normal. With nowhere else to go, the homeless of Calcutta were slowly filtering back to their makeshift shelters.

Everywhere Donna looked, she saw repairs being made to the flimsy dwellings, fires being lit against the chill of the night. Two small children spotted Gandhi and their eyes widened in wonder. When one of them murmured, 'Bapu,'

Gandhi gave them one of his familiar, near toothless grins and ambled across to talk to them.

'Just want to double-check something,' the Doctor muttered to Donna and followed Edward and Gopal into the nearest medical tent. Instantly the few staff that had remained behind and had managed to evade the clutches of the gelem warriors crowded around them.

'It's a miracle, Dr Morgan!' one of the staff said excitedly.

'They are cured! They are all cured!' exclaimed another.

Edward held up his hands, looking flustered. 'Please,' he said, 'one at a time. Will someone kindly explain what you're talking about.'

The half-dozen auxiliaries looked at one another, and

as if at some unspoken agreement a young, bespectacled Indian man stepped forward.

'The patients in the isolation tent, Dr Morgan,' he said, trying to contain his excitement, 'they are all better. Even the most advanced cases are no longer displaying any symptoms of their illness.'

Edward looked stunned. 'But . . . that's impossible,' he spluttered.

'Nah,' said the Doctor, 'that's energy inversion. I rigged the Jal Karath ship so that it would hoover up and neutralise every zytron particle within a thousand mile radius when it imploded.'

He looked round at the crescent of blank faces regarding him, and sighed. 'Look, all you need to know is that I did something incredibly clever and now everyone's better.'

Abruptly he clapped his hands. 'Right, back to work. There are still plenty of sick and hungry people out there, you know.'

As everyone got back to work, the Doctor looked at Donna and jerked his head towards the exit flap, indicating that they should leave.

Outside the tent they found Gandhi sitting cross legged on the ground, still talking quietly to the children. As the Doctor and Donna approached, the little man jumped nimbly to his feet.

'Right, Mohandas, we're off,' the Doctor said briskly. He held out a hand, and then, thinking better of it, abruptly stepped forward and embraced the little man. 'It's been a pleasure and a privilege,' he murmured before stepping back, uncharacteristically lost for words.

Gandhi beamed. 'And for me too, Doctor,' he said. 'Where will you go now?'

'Oh, you know,' said the Doctor vaguely, 'other times and places.'

'See you, Mohandas,' Donna said. She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. 'You look after yourself.'

Gandhi winked at the children, who were watching the exchange with interest. 'You see,' he said drily, 'even at my advanced age I have not lost my touch with the ladies.'

'You old rascal,' Donna said as the children giggled. 'Goodbye. And good luck with . . . everything.'

She and the Doctor walked across to the TARDIS, stopping at the door to wave one last time before going inside.

As the Doctor busied himself at the console, Donna looked at the image of the little man on the scanner screen.

'What happens to him?' she asked.

The Doctor looked at her for a moment, sadness on his face. Softly he said, 'On 30 January next year, he'll be assassinated. Someone will step out of a crowd of well wishers and shoot him in the heart.'

Donna put a hand to her mouth. Tears sparkled in her eyes. In a wavering voice she said, 'Who would do that? Why would anyone want to kill someone like him?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'There's always someone who doesn't agree with what you're trying to do,' he said simply.

Donna continued to stare at the serene face of the little man on the screen, too upset to speak. The Doctor sidled up and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

In a quiet voice he said, 'His last words as he lay on the ground were "Hey Rama", which means "Oh God". Witnesses say that as he died his face wore a serene smile and his body was surrounded by a halo of divine light.'


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Donna continued to stare at the serene, smiling face of Ghandi on the screen. She sniffed, still tearful at the fact that someone would want to kill this gentle man. 'He reminds me a lot of you, you know,' she said, looking up at the Doctor.

The Doctor's face was sombre. He reached out and pulled the lever that would propel the TARDIS into the Time Vortex.

'Oh, he's far more forgiving than I'll ever be,' he said, looking into her tear filled eyes. He remembered Rose being upset about Charles Dickens dying a year after she had met him. It was time to put things into perspective for Donna.

'Hey, don't forget that before you met him yesterday, he'd been dead for 58 years.'

Donna struggled to express her thoughts with words. 'Yeah, I know, but yesterday . . . and today, he was alive and had so much . . . what's the word I'm looking for?'

'Presence?' he offered.

'Yeah, that's it. He had presence. He could just stand there, that little unassuming man, and everyone would know he was there. And when he spoke, it was like he was shouting in a whisper. Does that make sense?' she said.

The Doctor smiled. 'Strong Words Softly Spoken: Engaging the Crowds in the Clouds,' he quoted. Donna raised an enquiring eyebrow. 'Gareth Johnson, he'll be the Document Supply & Repository Manager in David Wilson Library at University of Leicester in 2011. Always liked the sentiment.'

'See, I said you were like Ghandi.' She saw him about to protest. 'Oh, I know you're not as gentle as him, don't forget I saw you flush those spiders down the Thames. But I also saw the look on your face when she left you no choice.'

He too remembered that day.

["Empress of the Racnoss, I give you one last chance. I can find you a planet; I can find you and your children a place in the universe to co-exist. Take that offer and end this now"].

["What happens next is your own doing"] he had said, and he couldn't have been more different from Ghandi if he'd have tried.

Donna also remembered the pain and anguish on his face when he couldn't save Pompeii; remembered his frustrated anger at his impotence in that situation. He was Ghandi with a passion and an unwillingness to accept defeat.

'Oh, I don't know . . . this is all SO bonkers,' she said, waving her arms to indicate that she was talking about the TARDIS.

'Helios 5,' he said out of the blue. 'Not been there for ages. Mainly because it's a matriarchal society; y'know, lots of bossy women. You'll fit right in there.'

'Oi!' Donna warned, but he gave her his mischievous, boyish smile and set the coordinates.

'And then after you've done girl power, we can nip over to Ylum; I love Ylum, very cosmopolitan. Oh, oh, oh, and then we can have a look at the Moulin Très Rouge . . . very risqué.'

'That sounds like a grand day out,' she said, and then laughed as she remembered a couple of animated plasticine characters. She was definitely Grommit she decided.

She went to her room to get changed into denim jeans and a sweatshirt while the Doctor flew the TARDIS to Helios 5. He knew she was going to enjoy being the boss during their stay.

And enjoy it she did. And to be fair, he was surprised that she managed to contain her enthusiasm for her new found superior status . . . except for her asking him to peel her a grape. She didn't really want him to peel a grape; it was just a Mae West line she'd always wanted to use. (And to see his withering look of course)

The Democratic Conglomeration of Ylum on the other hand, was a very laid back world, inhabited by an arboreal race that had fashioned gigantic trees into towns and cities with interconnected branches. It was quite a tourist attraction and had become a popular resort.

The final destination of the day had been the one Donna had looked forward to the most. She'd seen Nicole Kidman and Kylie Minogue in the film Moulin Rouge, and couldn't wait to see what the alien version had to offer.

She had no idea!

* * *

Grommit entered the TARDIS, waving her hand in front of her flushed face. 'Risqué? More like erotic if you ask me,' she said with the look of astonishment lingering on her face.

Wallace came in behind her and closed the door. He had a big grin on his face. 'What those four armed girls can do with those feathers.'

'I was thinking more of those fit cat blokes with their tales . . . I'll never be able to look at a tomcat again without blushing.'

The Doctor laughed as he sent the TARDIS into the Vortex. 'Never really been a cat person myself. A bit too self centred and manipulative for my liking . . . although, you've got to admire the way they control humans; turn up, purr a bit, rub against some legs, get some food for free, and they're off again. Genius!'

Donna looked at him with her mouth open. 'Are you tellin' me that cats are aliens and they own humans?'

'Don't be daft. Course they don't own humans, they just make you think you own them.'

She shook her head in disbelief. Was this another one of his stories, or was he telling the truth? And, hang on a moment, he hadn't said they weren't aliens.

'So, what do you want to do today then?' he asked her before she could follow that thought through.

'I don't even know what day it is.'

'Well, at the moment we're in the Time Vortex, so technically it's any day and every day,' he told her with a smile. Donna gave him an exasperated look that made him instinctively put his hand on his cheek to protect it.

'You don't 'alf talk some rubbish at times.'

'Er, what day would you like it to be?' he asked her, trying to put time travel into terms that she could relate to.

Donna looked thoughtfully at the domed ceiling. 'Saturday, I always liked Saturdays. It was a day for kicking back and havin' some fun.' She then thought about what she used to do on Saturdays in her youth.

She went over to the monitor and looked at it. 'Does this thing get the internet, only the keys are all weird, with circles on them?'

'Oh, hang on; I'll change the keyboard configuration.' He ran around and tapped a few keys, and they changed from Gallifreyan to QWERTY.

Donna linked her fingers together and flexed them outwards, cracking her knuckles before wiggling her fingers. She poised them over the keys and typed ' .com', and the West Ham United Football Club website loaded, where she scanned down the list of fixtures, looking for this Saturday.

'Oh brilliant, they're at home to the Toon Army.' She looked up at the Doctor. 'The TARDIS can go anywhere, yeah?'

'Anywhere in the universe,' he told her with pride.

'What about inside Upton Park this Saturday?'

'Ah, a West Ham supporter eh? And they're playing Newcastle, that's going to be a hard one for them, as they haven't beaten the Tynesiders in their last nine games . . . Okay, let's do it,' he said with enthusiasm as he set the coordinates.

'Oh, so you're a sports fan are ya?'

'Well, I normally prefer the more sedate pace of cricket . . . but yeah, I like sport.'

'My Granddad follows the cricket; it's a bit too slow for me.'

The TARDIS landed inside the ground, near the hotdog and burger stands, where Donna immediately bought them a hotdog each.

'Ooh, hotdogs with ketchup and mustard . . . top banana,' he said as he bit into his.

'C'mon,' Donna said, leading him to the Centenary Stand, which would be renamed the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand, next year. 'I hope you're in good voice, because this is the noisiest stand in the ground.'

'I love the atmosphere in a stadium, all energy, and adrenalin,' he said, having another bite of his hotdog as they ascended the wide steps.

Donna looked at him and saw a dribble of ketchup on his chin. 'Come here yer mucky Herbert,' she said with a smile as she wiped the ketchup with her napkin.

'This reminds me of the twenty twelve Olympics, I took . . . Never mind, it was brilliant anyway.'

'Was it with Rose?' Donna asked kindly.

'Yeah,' He said, lost in his memories. It had been their first outing as a proper couple, after having had a long talk about their future together, and they'd had their first proper kiss. Unfortunately, it had also been their last outing together, because after visiting the Rings of Akhaten, they had gone back to see Jackie, and got caught up in the battle of Canary Wharf.

Donna could see he was getting all sad and reflective. 'Well come on my slippery, skinny, spaceman lets find a seat and start singin',' she said, nudging his elbow.

He switched on his smile for her and carried on up the steps. She was just the kind of companion he needed, someone who could bring him out of his Maudling moods, and show him that it was worth carrying on.

When they had climbed a quarter of the way up the stand, he noticed that it was Donna who was now quiet and reflective.

'Everything alright?' he asked her, and she turned her head quickly to look at him, as though he had startled her.

'Erm, yeah . . . it's just that I used to sit here with my dad.'

'Donna . . . little Donna Noble?' a large man in a West Ham scarf called out.

'Oh, hello Big Dave, how ya doin'?'

'Haven't seen you 'ere for a while,' he said with a smile, and then looked concerned. 'I was sorry to hear about yer dad Love, he was a lovely chap. In fact, I was 'ere with 'im on that Wednesday night when we beat the Scousers.'

A woman touched her arm. 'Hello Donna, sorry to hear about Geoff, it was such a shock.'

A number of people came up to her to say hello and offer condolences, it seemed the whole stand knew and loved Geoff Noble. Big Dave took off his scarf and put it on the back of the chair where Geoff used to sit, in respect for a lost friend and fellow supporter.

'Tell you what people,' he said, calling out to the people around him. 'Pass the word around, before we start singin', we're 'avin' a minutes silence for Donna's dad.'

The word went out, and it spread on the grapevine through the Centenary Stand like a wildfire. The usually noisiest part of the stadium became eerily silent, as friends of Geoff Noble, and fellow supporters showed their respect for a devoted fan and his daughter.

Donna wiped a tear from her cheek and grabbed big Dave in a hug. 'Thank you for that Dave, it means a lot to me, and Dad would have loved that. So come on, let's do him proud and sing our hearts out so even he'll be able to hear us up there.'

Big Dave held her shoulders and gave her a big grin. 'Oh we'll certainly do that alright. Who's this by the way?' he said looking at the Doctor. 'Your new boyfriend? Yer dad told me things didn't work out with the chap you were gonna marry.'

Donna snorted a laugh. 'Nah, he's a bit too skinny for me. Dave, this is the Doctor, I'm his social worker.'

'Oi,' the Doctor said in protest.

Big Dave laughed, knowing that Donna was joking. 'Nice to meet ya Doctor. Any friend of Donna's is a friend of ours.' he said, crushing the Doctor's fingers in a friendly handshake. He then frowned at him. 'Haven't I seen you 'ere before with Geoff?'

Donna looked at him with a questioning look on her face, as he shrugged his shoulders. 'It's the first time I've been to this Ground,' he said honestly. However, it didn't mean that it would be his last, and it didn't mean that it would be in the right order.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

'Thanks for last night,' Donna said as she bit into her toast at the breakfast table. 'I know we went for the football, but the tribute to dad was the icing on the cake,' she said with a smile.

He nodded his head in agreement, wondering when he would go and see Geoff Noble. 'You're welcome,' he said, smiling in return.

'A two, two draw though,' Donna said disappointedly. 'Are we ever goin' to beat those Geordies?'

The Doctor consulted the terminal on the counter. 'September this year, do you want to know the score?'

'Don't you dare, I want to see that one.'

'Fair enough. It's one of those 'if you don't want to know the result, look away now' moments.'

'You doin' that just then, lookin' into the future; I've been wonderin', how does it all work then, all this time travellin' stuff?' she asked him as she took another bite of toast.

'It's a bit complicated,' he said.

'So's the Dewey Decimal System, but I nailed that in two days,' she told him with a hint of pride in her voice.

'Alright, it's VERY complicated.'

'No doubt, but how can I put this? I don't want to understand how it works, I want to know how you do it.' The Doctor looked at her as though she'd dribbled down her top.

'I mean, I have a car, and I know there's somethin' under the bonnet that you can put oil and water in, but it don't stop me from drivin' it, does it?'

'Ah, I see. That thing under the bonnet is called THE ENGINE,' he said as though he was talking to an infant. 'And if you put the water and the oil in the wrong holes . . . that will certainly stop you from driving it.'

'Which is why I pay a mechanic to do it for me,' she said with a head wobble of attitude. 'So are you gonna show me how it's done or what?'

The Doctor smiled at her, his eyes had a far away look as he remembered how Rose had enjoyed flying the TARDIS. After the Satellite Five incident, he had thought it was probably safer if she learnt some of the basics of how to make a return journey, just in case.

'Okay then, finish your tea and toast, and we'll see what you can do.'

'Really? Oh brilliant!'

They went through to the console room, and he gave her a quick orientation of the console. They were already in the Vortex and the time rotor was pumping up and down.

'Just like an aircraft, the take offs and the landings are the tricky bits,' he started.

Donna rolled her eyes. 'I know, don't forget I've been travellin' with ya. Haven't quite got the hang of them yet, have ya?'

'Do you want to fly the TARDIS or not?' he said in a huff.

'Sorry . . . yes I do . . . really . . . sorry,' she said sheepishly.

'Right, so this section here controls the spatial coordinates.' He saw the blank look on her face. 'Y'know, where you want to go, up, down, forwards, backwards, left and right.'

'Oh yeah, okay.'

'And this section controls the temporal coordinates, what the date is going to be when you land.'

'Got it . . . time,' she said pointing to the temporal coordinate selector. 'And space,' she concluded, pointing at the three dimensional selector.

He scratched the back of his neck. 'Er, yeah, that's right. Oh, and some of the actuators are over a thousand years old and get a bit stuck, so they sometimes need a little tap with the mallet.'

'So that's what you call beatin' the livin' daylights out of your ship is it, a little tap? I remember when I was little, we used to have a man who would come to fix the telly. He used to bang it on the top, and bang it on the side, and it used to get the picture back.'

'There you are then, a valid technique for maintaining complex and sensitive equipment. Of course, you have to know where to hit it and how hard,' he told her in all seriousness. 'Now grab that lever there, and that knob there.' He indicated the controls for the temporal adjustments. 'You're going to balance their settings to keep us on a linear progression through time.'

'I can't believe I'm doing this!' Donna shouted excitedly.

'No, neither can I,' the Doctor said, more worried than excited. 'Oh, careful.' He hit the console with the mallet and pulled a lever, letting Donna take control again.

'Left hand down . . . left hand down! Getting a bit too close to the 1980s.'

'What am I going to do, put a dent in them?' she asked sarcastically.

'Wellll, someone did,' he said quietly.

'be-be-be-beep, be-be-be-beep'.

'Hold on,' Donna said. 'That's a phone.'

He took Martha's phone out of a slot on the console and looked at it with concern, remembering what Martha had said.

['Keep that, because I'm not having you disappear. If that rings, when that rings, you'd better come running. Got it?']

'You've got a mobile? Since when?' Donna said.

'It's not mine.' He sat on the jump seat and flipped it open. 'Hello?'

'Doctor? It's Martha, and I'm bringing you back to Earth.'

'Tell me, how bad is it?' he asked, knowing that she wouldn't call if it wasn't something so big that one country couldn't handle it.

'Bad enough, UNIT have asked me to bring you in on this, I'll fill you in when you get here.'

He stood up and went to the console. 'Okay, I've got a fix on your phone signal, see you soon.' He adjusted the temporal and spatial coordinates, and they felt the TARDIS gently sway as she changed direction and time tracks.

'Who was that then?' Donna asked.

'Martha . . . she gave me her phone in case she ever needed me for anything.'

'And what does she need you for, has she still got the hots for you?' she asked with a cheeky smile.

He rolled his eyes and smiled at her. 'Stop it, there must be something going on that she needs help with.'

There was a gentle bump as the TARDIS touched down, and he shut down the time rotor and console, before walking down the ramp and opening the door. He looked right, down an alley between two factory units, and then looked left, and there she was, Martha Jones.

'Martha Jones,' he said hesitantly, not sure what kind of reception he would get.

'Doctor,' Martha said in reply, just as hesitant and uncertain. They walked towards each other and then grinned, holding their arms out for a hug.

'A-ha . . . You haven't changed a bit,' he said lifting her off the floor.

'Neither have you,' she replied with a laugh.

'How's the family?'

'You know . . . not so bad . . . Recovering.'

'What about you?' he asked her as Donna stepped out of the TARDIS, looking at them questioningly.

'Right,' Martha said, looking past his shoulder. 'Should have known. Didn't take you long to replace me, then.'

'Now, don't start fighting,' he said quietly in her ear, before straightening up and making the introductions. 'Martha, Donna. Donna, Martha. Please don't fight. Can't bear fighting.'

'You wish,' Donna said smiling and holding out her hand.

'I've heard all about you. He talks about you all the time,' she said shaking Martha's hand warmly.

'I dread to think,' Martha said, giving him a questioning glance.

'No, no, no. No, he says nice things. Good things. Nice things. Really good things.'

'Oh my God, he's told you everything' she realised.

Donna spotted the diamond ring on Martha's finger. 'Didn't take long to get over it though. Who's the lucky man?'

'What man? Lucky what?' he asked. He really hadn't got a clue when it came to human domestic.

'She's engaged, you prawn.' Martha waved her ring in front of him.

'Really? Who to?'

'Tom . . . that Tom Milligan. He's in pediatrics. Working out in Africa right now, and yes, I know, I've got a doctor who disappears off to distant places. Tell me about it.'

'Is he skinny?' Donna asked.

'No, he's sort of strong' Martha said with a desiring look in her eyes.

'He is too skinny for words,' Donna said, pointing at the Doctor with her thumb. 'You give him a hug, you get a paper cut.'

'Oh, I'd rather you were fighting,' he said, rolling his eyes.

'Speaking of which,' Martha said, taking her walkie-talkie off the belt clip.

'Doctor Jones, report to base, please, over,' a woman said over the radio.

'This is Doctor Jones, operation Blue Sky is go, go, go. I repeat, this is a go.' A convoy of jeeps, trucks and a squad of UNIT soldiers went past, followed by a car with Army top brass.

A soldier called out through a loudhailer. 'All workers, lay down your tools and surrender.'

Martha spoke into her radio. 'Greyhound Six to Trap One. B Section, go, go, go. Search the ground floor. Grid pattern delta.'

'What are you searching for?' the Doctor asked her as they followed her towards the entrance of a factory that had the sign 'ATMOS' on it.

'Illegal aliens,' Martha replied.

The soldier on the loudhailer spoke again. 'This is a UNIT operation. All workers lay down your tools and surrender immediately.'

'B section mobilised. E section, F section, on my command,' Martha said into her radio, as she ran off to join the troops under her command.'

'Is that what you did to her?' Donna said. 'Turned her into a soldier?'

"That, is a very good question" the Doctor thought to himself as he looked around at all the soldiers. Unit were in the middle of a big operation to investigate the Atmos company, as a number of deaths had occurred recently in cars that were fitted with the Atmos emissions reducer and sat-nav unit.

* * *

The Doctor ran inside the Rattigan Academy, carrying the 'homemade' atmospheric converter he had just used to ignite the Sontaran caesofine gas. He stepped up into the tunnel-like teleport and turned to face Donna, Martha and the young genius who had caused all the trouble in the first place, Luke Rattigan.

'Right. So, Donna . . . thank you, for everything,' he said, looking at her concerned and confused face.

'Martha, you too . . . Oh . . . so many times.' He could see by Martha's expression that she knew what he was going to do.

'Luke, do something clever with your life,' he said, in the tone of disappointed father talking to a wayward son.

As he adjusted the converter, Donna realised what he was up to. 'You're saying goodbye,' she whispered.

'Sontarans are never defeated,' he told them. 'They'll be getting ready for war. And, well, you know . . . I've recalibrated this for Sontaran air, so . . .' He left that sentence hanging there in front of them, he couldn't finish it.

Martha realised that it would do to the Sontaran ship what it had done to the Earth. 'You're going to ignite them.'

'You'll kill yourself,' Donna said in disbelief.

'Just send that thing up on its own . . . I don't know . . . put it on a delay,' Martha begged him.

'I can't,' he said, almost inaudible.

'Why not?' Donna asked him.

'I've got to give them a choice,' he said as a matter of fact, before activating the teleport, and disappearing from their lives forever.

Donna and Martha gasped and stared at the teleport, tears stinging their eyes. He never even said goodbye.

He appeared in an identical tunnel on the Sontaran ship, and put the converter on the floor, picking up the button. 'General Staal, you know what this is . . . but there's one more option. You can go . . . just leave. Sontaran High Command need never know what happened here.'

The short, alien soldier, with a head like an angry potato, regarded him with contempt. 'Your stratagem would be wise if Sontarans feared death, but we do not. At arms.'

The Doctor heard the ship preparing for invasion. 'I'll do it, Staal; if it saves the Earth, I'll do it.'

'A warrior doesn't talk, he acts,' Staal said, as he lectured the Doctor on the basic Sontaran philosophy of war.

'I am giving you the chance to leave.' The Doctor spoke each word slowly and clearly, trying to get through Staal's thick skull.

'And miss the glory of this moment?' he said, amazed that anyone would consider missing the opportunity of a good fight.

'All weapons targeting Earth, Sir. Firing in twenty,' a voice said over the intercom.

'I'm warning you,' the Doctor shouted.

'And I salute you. Take aim.' Several helmeted troops raised their rifles, and there was the sound of breeches being loaded.

'Shoot me; I'm still going to press this. You'll die, Staal.'

'Knowing that you die too.'

'Firing in fifteen,' the intercom said.

'For the glory of Sontar. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha.' The assembled troops started pounding their right fists into their left palms.

'I'll do it,' the Doctor shouted.

'Then do it!' Staal shouted back. He judged actions by Sontaran standards, and knew the Doctor would have pressed it by now if he was going to. Ever the optimist, he would always try to find a way that would preclude any violence or death.

'Ten,' the intercom started counting.

'Sontar-ha.'

'Nine.'

'Sontar-ha.'

'Eight.'

'Sontar-ha.'

'Seven . . .' The Doctor was surrounded by white light, and the counting stopped. He landed heavily on the floor, and tried to catch his breath, which seemed to be caught in his chest at the moment. Martha came and sat by him, hugging his arm, while Donna came and slapped his other arm hard. "Could have been worse" he thought to himself, "it could have been the face again".

'So . . . where's Luke then?' he said, looking around the room.

'He did something to the teleport, and it seemed to swap you,' Martha said.

'Oh. Clever kid . . . a bit misguided, but still, a clever kid.' He stood up and started to reset the teleport.

'I suppose he wanted to make it right, y'know, all the trouble he caused,' Donna said.

'Yeah,' the Doctor said, drawing in breath. 'One hell of an act of penance.'

He operated the teleport, and took them back to the basement of the Atmos factory, where the lifeless clone of Martha was lying against a column.

'Who was she?' Donna asked them, as they walked towards the door.

'A Sontaran clone . . . Well, a Martha clone, made by Sontarans. It was preventing UNIT from taking any offensive action against them.'

'Oh,' Donna said, distractedly. 'Did you get chance to look at your bum?' she asked Martha.

'What?!' they said together.

'Haven't you ever wondered what your bum really looks like, y'know, not through mirrors or anythin'?'

'Oh yeah, I always wanted to see the back of my head,' the Doctor said smiling at the thought. Martha looked at them both as though they were a light bulb short of a chandelier.

Back at ground level, they saw the consequences of the Sontaran stratagem. The dead soldiers were being put in body bags, placed on stretchers, and carried away to the UNIT Lorries, where they would be taken to the county mortuary. The dead Sontarans were also placed on stretchers, but the Doctor suspected they would be going to a laboratory in UNIT headquarters.

'I need to go home and get some clothes,' Martha said quietly, watching the macabre scene.

'What about your clothes on the clone?' the Doctor asked her.

'They're on a dead woman, you plonker!' Donna said as she rolled her eyes at him.

'Oh, right,' he said with his hands in his pockets. 'You've still got some stuff in your room on the TARDIS.'

'Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that,' Martha said with a smile.

'And while she's gettin' dressed, you can take me home,' Donna said, and saw the Doctor raise a questioning eyebrow. 'To see how they are before we go off again.'

He smiled at her, and they each took an arm as they walked back to the alley where the TARDIS was waiting.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

'The streets are half empty, people still aren't driving,' Sylvia said as she came into the kitchen and put the shopping on the worktop. 'There's kids on bikes all over the place. It's wonderful.' Donna smiled at her mum as she spoke. She was seeing something positive from the Atmos affair.

'Unpack that lot, I'm going to see if Suzette's all right,' she said as she went out the kitchen door.

'I won't tell her,' Wilf said in a conspiratorial tone. 'Best not . . . just keep it as our little secret, eh?'

'Yeah,' Donna whispered.

'And you go with him . . . that wonderful Doctor.' He started to get emotional. 'You go and see the stars . . . and then bring a bit of them back for your old Gramps.'

Donna smiled and nodded, before standing up and hugging him, and giving him a loving kiss on the top of his head.

'Love you,' she said, squeezing his shoulder and walking down the hallway to the front door. She walked across the road to where the TARDIS was parked, the same place it had parked when the Doctor had first brought her home on that eventful Christmas.

'How were they?' Martha asked as Donna walked up the ramp.

'Oh, same old stuff,' she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. 'They're fine . . . So, you going to come with us? We're not exactly short of space.'

'Oh, I have missed all this, but, you know,' she said looking up at the time rotor. 'I'm good here, back at home. And I'm better for having been away.'

She held her left hand up, showing her engagement ring. 'Besides, someone needs me. Never mind the universe, I've got a great big world of my own now,' she said excitedly, heading for the ramp.

Before she could put a foot on the ramp, the door slammed shut on its own and the time rotor started to pump up and down, throwing everyone around.

The Doctor grabbed the monitor to see what was happening. 'What . . .? What?'

'Doctor, don't you dare!' Martha called out.

'No, no, no. I didn't touch anything . . . We're in flight, it's not me.'

'Where are we going?' Donna shouted.

'I don't know . . . It's out of control!'

'Doctor, just listen to me. You take me home. Take me home right now!' Martha demanded.

'What the hell's it doing?' Donna asked.

'The control's not working,' he said, as he fell against the jump seat. He noticed that his 'spare' hand was bubbling away in the jar under the console. "That's odd", he thought to himself.

'I don't know where we're going, but my old hand's very excited about it.'

'I thought that was just some freaky alien thing. You telling me it's yours?' Donna said in disbelief.

'Well,' he said as he hung on to the console.

'It got cut off. He grew a new one,' Martha explained.

'You are completely . . . impossible.'

'Not impossible . . . just a bit unlikely,' he said as the console exploded, throwing the ladies to the floor, and the Doctor onto the jump seat. They breathed heavily, as they watched the time rotor slowly cease, bringing peace and tranquillity to the TARDIS once more.

The Doctor jumped up and ran around the console, down the ramp, and out the door. The ladies climbed to their feet and ran after him.

'Why would the TARDIS bring us here, then?' he asked, as he stepped out into a large tunnel full of junk.

'Oh, I love this bit,' Martha said.

'I thought you wanted to go home,' Donna reminded her.

'I know, but all the same . . . it's that feeling you get,' she said excitedly.

'Like you swallowed a hamster?'

'Like you swallowed a hamster?' the Doctor and Martha thought to themselves. What kind of comparison was that? Before they could pursue that line of thought, they were rudely interrupted.

'Don't move! Stay where you are! Drop your weapons,' one of three men said who were running in their direction, pointing rifles at them.

They raised their hands. 'We're unarmed. Look, no weapons, never any weapons. We're safe,' the Doctor said hurriedly.

'Look at their hands. They're clean,' another man said.

'All right, process them. Him first.'

Two soldiers shouldered their rifles and grabbed the Doctor's arms.

'Oi, oi. What's wrong with clean hands?' he asked.

'What's going on?' Martha asked them.

The Doctor had his right arm pushed into a hole in a drum-like machine.

'Leave him alone,' Donna shouted at them.

'Something tells me this isn't about to check my blood pressure. Argh!'

'What are you doing to him?' Donna asked.

'Everyone gets processed,' the leader of the small group told them.

'It's taken a tissue sample,' the Doctor informed them. 'Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. And extrapolated it. Some kind of accelerator?'

The machine released his arm, and he pulled it free, examining the back of his hand, where he saw a graze, and a hint of blood.

'Are you alright?' Martha asked, as she examined his hand to see if it needed any medical attention.

He ignored Martha's question, he was distracted by an upright glass and metal cylinder that had a blue light inside it.

'What on earth? That's just . . .'

A pair of glass and metal doors opened and a figure stepped out from the steam of the brightly lit interior. She was a skinny blonde woman in combat boots, trousers, and a khaki T-shirt.

'Arm yourself,' the group leader said, and handed her a rifle.

'Where did she come from?' Martha asked.

'From me,' the Doctor said as he watched her prep the weapon. He couldn't take his eyes off her, that face was SO familiar, and he hadn't seen it for centuries.

'From you?' Donna asked. 'How? Who is she?'

'Well . . . she's, well . . . she's my daughter.'

'Hello, Dad.'

* * *

He had dared to dream . . . again. What he could have achieved with his daughter by his side. Okay, when he thought about it, she was more like a loom cousin, but she was his family, and she was beautiful, and he had so many plans.

['Jenny, be strong now. You need to hold on, do you hear me . . .? We've got things to do, you and me, hey? Hey . . .? We can go anywhere . . . Everywhere . . . You choose.']

['That sounds good,'] she had smiled.

['You're my daughter, and we've only just got started . . . You're going to be great . . . You're going to be more than great . . . You're going to be amazing . . . You hear me? Jenny?']

And then, like the rest of his family before her, she died . . . in his arms. They had left her on a makeshift altar, where the citizens of that new world would perform a ceremony which would build the foundation of a new society, one based on peace, understanding, and forgiveness. The funeral of a young woman, who gave her short life, to save the life of her father, a man who had every right to kill her murderer, but who never would.

'So how was it that we ended up here then?' Donna asked the quiet, reflective Time Lord, who was leaning against a coral strut by the console. He was watching his spare hand bubbling in the jar.

'Jenny,' he said distractedly. 'Jenny was the reason for the TARDIS bringing us here . . . it just got here too soon.' He took a breath and moved to sit on the jump seat. 'Which then created Jenny in the first place . . . Paradox.. an endless paradox.' He looked at Martha, who was trying to keep it together for his sake. 'Time to go home.'

'Yeah . . . home.'

He stood and leaned over the console, activating the time rotor, and setting the coordinates for Martha's street. The two women looked at each other silently, each one knowing that the other was worried for their lonely, grieving companion.

After a few minutes, they heard the familiar bump as the TARDIS landed, and the Doctor started to shut down the console. Donna and Martha walked down the ramp, and stepped outside, onto a street of terraced houses.

'This is my stop,' Martha said with a smile; it was good to be home.

'Are you sure about this?' Donna asked as they strolled towards Martha's house.

'Yeah, positive,' she said, getting all emotional. 'I can't do this any more. You'll be the same one day.'

'Not me, never . . . How could I ever go back to normal life after seeing all this?' Donna looked back to see the Doctor closing the door of the TARDIS and walk towards them. 'I'm going to travel with that man for ever.'

Martha smiled at her and they fell into a hug. 'Good luck,' she said.

'And you,' Donna replied, releasing the hug and letting Martha and the Doctor walk on to her house.

'We're making a habit of this,' he said lightheartedly.

'Yeah, and you'd think it'd get easier . . . All those things you've been ready to die for. I thought for a moment there you'd finally found something worth living for.'

'Oh . . . there's always something worth living for, Martha.'

They stood, smiling at each other, but she became tearful and pulled him desperately into a hug. She released the hug and took a cleansing breath, strengthening her resolve. 'Bye, Doctor.'

'Goodbye . . . Doctor Jones.'

She nodded, and watched him turn around to walk back to the TARDIS with Donna. Had she made the right choice? She looked at the ring on her finger and smiled, of course she had. With a smile on her face she looked up at her house and went inside.

'D'yer think you'll ever see her again?' Donna asked as he put the key in the lock.

He looked back down the street to Martha's house. 'Who knows . . . I've still got her phone, and she does work for UNIT.'

He pushed the door open for Donna, and followed her inside. Donna walked up the ramp to the console and turned to wait for the Doctor to reach her, a concerned look on her face. "Oh-oh", he thought to himself; "what now?"

She gently reached for his hand and held it. 'Are you alright though?' she asked quietly. 'I mean, gainin' and losing a daughter, all in one day . . . that's pretty hard to take. I remember when my dad died . . . there were so many things I wanted to say to him.' She had a sad smile on her face as she thought about it. 'Goodbye bein' the main one.'

'I'm fine,' he said as he activated the console with his free hand. He saw the look of uncertainty on her face. 'Honestly. I won't deny that it hurts . . . but I met her . . . I even made her,' he said as he started the time rotor. 'But I think we are all richer for having known her, and we won't forget her, will we?'

'Too right we won't, she was bloody amazin', and come to think of it, so were you, I don't think I would have been so forgivin' of General Cobb.'

'Oh I think you would Donna Noble. You know when something isn't right, and killing someone in anger, for revenge . . . well, that's never going to be right,' he said, smiling kindly at her.

'You always try to see the best in people, don't you . . . always lookin' on the bright side of life?'

He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the console. 'If I didn't, I don't think I would carry on.' Then a smile spread across his face, the sadness filed away in that alien brain of his. 'I've just had an idea of where we can go next.' His smile turned into a grin, his enthusiasm became infectious.

'Where are we goin',' she asked with a smile of her own.

'Matmata, Tunisia, October 1978.' He set the coordinates on the console and waggled his eyebrows at her. 'We're going to look on the bright side of life.'

He went and changed from his blue suit, back to his traditional brown pinstripe suit, with a dark blue T-shirt under the jacket. Donna came back to the console room wearing a white, sleeveless top and white, denim trousers, ready for the sun. He landed the TARDIS, and shut down the console, before walking down the ramp with Donna.

'Blimey, it's hot here!' Donna exclaimed as she stepped onto the dry dusty ground. She looked around, and saw a white castellated wall that wouldn't have been out of place in a film about the crusades. Hang on, were those Roman soldiers over there.

'Oi, I thought you said 1978, not AD 78,' she said, thinking he'd got it wrong again.

'It is 1978, and if you look over there.' He nodded behind her. 'You'll see the film crew.'

'What film crew?' she asked, turning around. 'Hang on; are those people on those wooden crosses?'

'Yep. Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and the rest.'

'Monty Python! Oh my God, this is Life of Brian,' she said open mouthed.

'Yeah, fancy being an extra in the crowd? They were on such a small budget that they recruited locals and holidaymakers as extras.'

'Wha', can we? It won't cause one of those paradox things will it?'

'Nah, it wouldn't be the first time I've been an extra in a film,' he said, thinking of when he and Rose had watched the mini's go by them in the Italian Job.

'What did you say?' Donna asked, not sure that she'd heard him right.

He ignored her question and grabbed her hand, leading her towards the costume tent. 'Come on, let's get into costume and we can sing the song at the end of the film.'

They left the tent with, tourists and locals, wearing robes and headdresses over their clothes. They were directed up the hill to the crosses, by a man with a clipboard and walkie-talkie, who gave them a rundown of what was going on.

'Cheer up Brian,' Eric Idle started. 'You know what they say . . . Some things in life are bad . . .' He started the introduction to the song, and soon got to the chorus.

Donna and the Doctor looked at each other, laughed, and started to sing. 'Always look on the bright side of life.' Wit-woo, wit-woo, wit-woo-wit-woo-wit-woo, they whistled, which was hard when they were grinning so much.

'Thank you everyone, that's a wrap,' Terry Jones called through a loudhailer. Every one cheered and burst into applause.

'Aaargh, I can't believe we just did that, it was . . . brilliant!' Donna said, laughing. 'Will it cause a paradox thing if I tell people I'm in it now?'

'Nah, why would it?' he said. 'Think about it, from this moment on, you've always been in it, you just never knew it.'

Her eyes went wide in amazement, and then she had a wicked smile. 'So . . . y'know how the Python crew play all the different parts in their films?' she said thoughtfully.

'Yeah?' he replied cautiously.

'Well, what about if we got in all the crowd scenes, could we do that, y'know, go back to the start of filmin'.'

The Doctor frowned at her, and then a grin spread across his face. 'Alright, go on then, you're on.' He waggled his eyebrows and they ran back to the TARDIS.

They spent a week in Tunisia, jumping from the sixteenth of September to the twelfth of November nineteen seventy eight, getting themselves in every crowd scene in the film.

'You wait 'til I tell Gramps about this, we love this film, we used to do all the dialogue between us,' she told him as they walked back to the costume tent.

'Talking of Gramps, it's his birthday soon; I'll have to buy him a card and a present.'

'Oh, I know this place that does brilliant greetings cards,' he said enthusiastically, as he took the robe off over his head, and then he frowned. 'Mind you, the last two times I've been there, it got a bit complicated.'

Donna gave a single laugh. 'Hah! When are things ever not complicated when you're around?' She said as she took her robe off.

'Fair comment, come on then, let's go and get Gramps a card.'


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Donna stepped out of the TARDIS into a large pedestrian area, with lawns, raised flower beds, trees, fountains, and . . .

'Is that the Statue of Liberty?' she asked the Doctor, as she looked up, suddenly realising that they were inside the most enormous skyscraper she had ever seen.

'Yep, the one, and only,' he replied, smiling at her reaction to the view. After all the centuries, it still gave him a buzz to watch peoples wonder and amazement at seeing new environments.

'So this is New York in the future . . . what year is it?'

'Ah, well, it's the year five billion and eighty three, but it isn't New York . . . it isn't even Earth.'

Donna continued to look up at hundreds of galleries containing shops and offices that all faced the statue. Glass walkways criss-crossed between the galleries, and cylindrical glass elevators ascended and descended silently between the floors.

'Where are we then?'

'New New York, on the planet New Earth, the National Trust brought the Statue here when the old Earth was abandoned.'

'Wow, that's amazin'!'

'Yeah, and they've been busy over the last thirty years. There was a virus that wiped out a lot of the population, but they seem to have recovered and repopulated the city . . . you humans are just brilliant!'

Donna had a proud smile on her face. 'So where's this card shop then?'

The Doctor looked up at the galleries, turned around, stopped, and pointed. 'Up there, tenth floor, come on, we can grab one of those lifts.'

'Hold on,' she said, standing still and staring at a couple who were looking at a city map. 'Are those cats . . .? They are, they're cats; people sized cats!'

The Doctor lowered her arm that she was using to point. 'Donna, it's rude to point, and yes, they are Catkind, and they are the reason this place had recovered so well. Novice Hame has created a lasting legacy . . .; good for her.'

The Doctor explained the story of the Sisters of Plentitude while they travelled in the lift, how he and Rose stumbled upon the human incubators of cures for disease, and how Novice Hame had served a penance by serving the Face of Boe, and saving all the people in the under city from the deadly virus.

After purchasing an incredible, futuristic birthday card, they explored the rest of the galleries and ended up in the Crown viewing platform of the Statue of Liberty. From this vantage point, they could see out through the glass front of the skyscraper, over the rest of New New York.

Donna was gazing thoughtfully at the view. 'This is beautiful,' she said turning to the Doctor and grinning. 'Oh I bloody love this. Can I just say . . . travelling with you . . . it's, it's . . . brilliant.'

He took a deep breath, remembering Rose saying pretty much the same thing when she came here. 'Yeah, it is, isn't it,' he said with a smile. The queue of people was moving through the viewing platform, and they had to move on.

'Have you seen anything that he might like as a gift yet?' he asked her later, as they exited the statue into the pedestrian square.

'Nah, not yet. Before I left, he encouraged me to travel the stars with ya, and bring a bit of them back for him.'

'Oof, that's not a good idea, superheated stellar plasma is over five thousand degrees Celsius; it would probably set fire to the curtains, not to mention melting the walls.'

'I swear you're hard work at times,' she told him, rolling her eyes. 'He meant something from out here, between the stars you Wally. He's always been interested in astronomy.'

'Really, then I think I know the perfect gift,' he said with a smile.

* * *

'I'm back!' Donna called out, as she stepped through the front door. 'Where's the birthday boy then?' She went through to the kitchen, and found Wilf sitting at the table, reading a newspaper.

'Donna, you're back Sweetheart!'

'Oh, decided to pay us a visit have you?' her mother said, as she came through from the living room. 'And you're still with him then,' she observed, as the Doctor walked into the kitchen.

"Charming", he thought to himself.

'Don't start Sylvia,' Wilf said, as he received a big hug from his granddaughter.

'I couldn't miss my old Gramp's birthday now, could I? How are ya Granddad?'

'Ah, well, y'know, can't complain,' he started to tell her.

'And if ya did, nobody would listen, I know,' Donna finished with a laugh. She put a glittery bag on the table. 'Happy birthday Granddad.'

'Oh Sweetheart, you shouldn't have.'

'Course I should; here, open your card.'

She dipped into the bag and took out a foil envelope and handed it to him. He opened the envelope and took out the card which read, 'To Granddad on your birthday'. When he opened the card, there was a holographic head of Donna which said, 'happy birthday Gramps, I love you'.

'Oh my Lord! Would you look at that Sylvia . . . it's Donna, an' she talks an' everythin'.'

'Mmm, it's certainly unusual, where did you get that?'

'New New York,' she said without thinking. 'New York, just the one new,' she corrected herself, winking at her granddad.

'New York eh . . . it's alright for some,' Sylvia said, with a hint of envy as she went to the sink.

Wilf looked around to see if Sylvia was in earshot, and then leaned towards Donna. 'Is that from . . .' he whispered, pointing up to the ceiling. Donna gave him a big smile and nodded.

'Oh my word, that's wonderful that is. Thank you Sweetheart.'

'And we went to Blackpool, special like, to get you this.' She rummaged in the bag and brought out a stick of Blackpool rock.

'Hah, a stick of rock . . . haven't had a stick of rock in ages, not since you were a nipper on holiday at Brighton,' he said with a far away look in his eyes.

'Ah, but this is special rock Granddad, have a look and see what's written in it,' she said excitedly.

Wilf unwrapped one end of the cellophane and looked at the writing in the rock.

'It says "moon", hah, I see what you've done there,' he laughed. 'It's moon rock, that's very clever.'

Donna reached over the table and squeezed his hand. 'Well, you told me to bring a bit of the stars back with me, but that was just a joke,' she said in a quiet, conspiratorial tone. 'Here, this is the first part of your present.'

She took out a parcel, the size of an A4 book, wrapped in birthday paper, and handed it to him. Wilf felt the present first, to see if he could determine what it was, and then carefully unwrapped it. It was a framed photograph, and his eyes went wide in amazement. It was a photograph of Viking One, the first robotic craft to land on Mars, and there, leaning against the craft with her arms folded, wearing an orange space suit, and a yellow helmet, was Donna.

'I . . . is that . . .? Are you . . .?' Wilf tried to speak.

'Look closely on top of Viking Granddad, what can you see?' she whispered.

He looked closely, squinting at the picture, and on top of Viking One, he could see a small, wooden plinth, with a piece of brown rock on it, covered with a glass dome. Donna reached into the bag once more and took out a cylindrical present, again wrapped in birthday paper.

'Happy birthday Gramps,' she said, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek.

He unwrapped the present, and there in his hand was the very same object that was in the photograph. There was a little engraved plaque which read, 'To Granddad, a little bit of Mars just for you. Love, Donna'.

His eyes started to fill with tears, as Sylvia came back to the table to see what they'd been whispering about.

'Where was that taken then?' she asked, inspecting the picture closely.

'Er . . .' Donna was desperately trying to think of an answer.

'The Kennedy Space Centre in Florida,' the Doctor said quickly.

'Brilliant', Donna mouthed at him.

'After New York, we travelled down to Florida and did the tour. They've got a mock up of the Viking on Mars, and you can wear a space costume and have your photo taken,' he said, winking at Wilf.

Wilf surreptitiously tapped the side of his nose to indicate that he understood. 'It's very realistic, isn't it Sylvia? I mean if we were able to reach Mars, you'd have said Donna was actually there.'

The Doctor and Donna had enormous grins on their faces, and Wilf had a mischievous chuckle to himself. 'Thank you Sweetheart, I will treasure these gifts.'

'So, are you stopping for some tea and a bit of cake, or are you gallivanting off again?' Sylvia asked them.

Donna looked at the Doctor, and saw that he wasn't keen on staying; it was all a bit too domestic for him.

'Hey, don't pester them Sylvia, they don't want to be botherin' with all that, they've got so much to see and so much to do,' Wilf said with a knowing look at the Doctor.

The Doctor saw that look, and immediately felt an affinity with this old soldier. 'Private Wilfred Mott, it would be an honour and a privilege to share a pot of tea and some cake with you.'

Donna's mouth fell open in disbelief. 'Blimey Gramps, how did you manage that?'

'We're kindred spirits my gal, kindred spirits, eh Doctor?'

The Doctor raised his mug of tea and gently 'clinked' it with Wilf's.

'I'll drink to that.'

'It's just a simple sponge,' Sylvia said, as she brought the cake over to the table. 'And just the one candle, if we put all the candles on, we'd probably set fire to the curtains.'

The Doctor and Donna exchanged looks, and burst out laughing, remembering their previous conversation in New New York. The Doctor looked at the sponge cake, which had white icing on the top, and . . .

'Edible ball bearings, oh brilliant! I have got to tell you, edible ball bearings are one of mankind's most brilliant creations,' he told them enthusiastically.

After an enjoyable cup of tea and an even more enjoyable piece of cake with edible ball bearings, both Donna and Wilf could see that the Doctor was becoming uncomfortable, and eager to get going.

'So where are you off to next then, Sweetheart?' Wilf asked her.

Donna nodded her head towards the Doctor. 'Ask 'im, he's the driver.'

'Oh it's all out there Wilf, new vistas, new horizons,' the Doctor said with a smile.

'An' you'll show 'em to her won't ya lad?' Wilf said, leaning in close.

The Doctor almost laughed at being called a lad at over nine hundred years old. 'Yeah Wilf, I'll show her.'

'What car do you drive Doctor?' Sylvia asked him from the sink, where she'd put the plates and mugs.

'It's a, er . . . a retro, nineteen sixties model,' he said, tugging his earlobe.

'And how do you afford all this travelling?' she asked, curious as to how he could apparently travel the globe like some jet-set playboy.

That question stumped him, it involved knowing about finance and money, but this time it was Donna who came to his rescue. The years of being a temporary secretary meant that she could walk the walk, and talk the talk.

'He's a sort of fixer Mum,' Donna told her.

'A fixer?' Sylvia asked, suddenly taking an interest. 'One of those financial advisor whiz kids?'

'Yeah, finance,' Donna agreed, taking her mothers lead. ' In the futures market.'

'Yep, definitely futures,' the Doctor added helpfully.

Donna was on a roll. 'In fact, that's why we were in New York; he had to go to Wall Street to seal a deal.

'Yep, seal a deal . . . oh, I like that, seal a deal . . . I'm a deal sealer,' he said, warming to the cover story.

Sylvia thought that she had seriously underestimated the Doctor, what with his scruffy looking suit and red converse. He must have a doctorate in economics, she thought, and maybe he dressed like that as a double bluff, to throw the opposition, and make them think he was a bit useless, it had certainly worked on her.

She started to dream of the future; a son in law who worked in the city would certainly raise her status in the social circles that she frequented. Alright, that poor Lance had been head of Human Resources, but a financial advisor, that was miles better.

Wilf was quietly chuckling to himself at their cover story, Sylvia would love it, and it would mean that she didn't know the truth, and wouldn't fret about her daughter.

'So, on to the next deal,' Donna said. 'Onwards and upwards, veni, vidi, vici, as Dad would say.'

'Right,' Sylvia said, accepting the fact that a high flying financial advisor would have to do a lot of travelling. 'Well, don't forget you've got a phone, and don't be afraid to use it,' she said, giving her daughter a very strong hint.

'Oh come here Mum,' Donna said, pulling her into a hug. 'We'll be back soon.' She stooped down and hugged her granddad. 'See you soon Gramps.'

'Yeah, I'll be up on the hill with my telescope Sweetheart,' he said, giving her a wink. 'And Doctor,' he said holding out his hand for him to shake. 'Thank you,' he said, nodding in Donna's direction.

The Doctor shook his hand, looking over at Donna, and then back to Wilf. 'My pleasure,' he said with a smile.

They left the house, crossed the road, and walked around the corner to the TARDIS. They stepped inside and walked up the ramp to the console.

'So, where to now?' he asked her with a smile. 'We could see the Mistfall on Alzarius.'

'Yeah, we could,' she said, uncertainly.

'What about Karas don Kazra don Slava then, a planet with intelligent sand and singing fish? Or, I know, we could go visit my old mate Leonardo da Vinci . . . you could even sit for him. You never know, you could end up in the Louvre, the Donna Noble with an enigmatic smile.'

'I'll give you an enigmatic slap in a minute,' she said with a laugh, and then gave him a lopsided smile. 'What about somewhere posh? I mean, you're a wheeler dealer sealer city gent now, take me somewhere where money talks, where they have cocktails, and people straighten their little pinkie when they drink tea,' she said in the closest she could get to a posh accent.

'Hah! You're on. I'll take you somewhere where they have posh coming out of their ears,' he said with a laugh, operating the controls with a flourish. They felt the TARDIS land, and he closed down the console, before leading Donna down the ramp to the doors, and stepping outside into a walled garden of a manor house.

'Oh, smell that air, grass and lemonade . . . and a little bit of mint. A hint of mint; must be the nineteen twenties.'

'You can tell what year it is just by smelling?' she asked him with a hint of scorn in her voice.

'Oh, yeah,' he said as a matter of fact.

'Or maybe that big vintage car coming up the drive gave it away,' she said, pointing at an open topped tourer approaching the house.

They watched, fascinated, as the butler and a footman came out of the house.

'The Professor's baggage, Richard, step lively,' the butler said.

The older driver, who they presumed was the professor, got out of the car and removed his flat cap and goggles.

'Good afternoon, Professor Peach,' the butler said in greeting.

'Hello, Greeves old man.'

Just then, a young man dressed in black and wearing a Panama hat, cycled up the driveway, ringing his bell. When he got closer, they could see he was wearing a 'dog collar', which told them he was a man of the cloth.

'Ah, Reverend,' Peach said.

'Professor Peach, Beautiful day,' the reverend said, climbing off his bicycle. 'The Lord's in his heaven, all's right with the world.'

'Blimey,' Donna said quietly. 'It's like bein' in an episode of Black Beauty or somethin'.'

Greeves greeted the vicar. 'Reverend Golightly, Lady Eddison requests you make yourselves comfortable in your rooms. Cocktails will be served on the lawn from half past four.' He nodded to the footman to take the reverend's bike.

'You go on up,' Peach said to Golightly. 'I need to check something in the library.'

'Oh?' Golightly raised an eyebrow.

'Alone,' Peach said in answer.

Golightly smiled at him. 'It's supposed to be a party, all this work will be the death of you.'

The Doctor and Donna were peeking around the corner of the house, listening to the conversation.

'Never mind Planet Zog, a party in the nineteen twenties, that's more like it,' Donna said with enthusiasm.

'The trouble is, we haven't been invited,' he told her, and then reached into his coat pocket. 'Oh, I forgot . . . yes, we have,' he smiled, waggling his wallet of psychic paper in front of her.

Donna grinned at him, and they headed back to the TARDIS to get changed. Well, Donna went to get changed; the Doctor would continue to wear his usual brown, pinstripe suit. He waited patiently outside the TARDIS for Donna to appear in a costume suitable for the period, until his patients started to run out.

He knocked on the door. 'We'll be late for cocktails,' he shouted at the door.

The door opened, and Donna appeared in a beaded dress suitable for nineteen twenties England. 'What do you think? Flapper or slapper?' she asked, unsure if she had got it right.

He looked her up and down and then smiled warmly. 'Flapper . . . you look lovely.'


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

'Just one mystery left, Doctor . . . who exactly are YOU?' Agatha Christie asked him, turning from the purple glow of the Silent Pool. Donna had just thrown the Firestone pendant into the pool, and Reverend Golightly, the Vespiform alien had dived in after it and drowned.

Before the Doctor could fob her off with a glib answer, Agatha doubled over in pain and collapsed.

The Doctor caught her and eased her to the ground. 'Oh, it's the Firestone, its part of the Vespiform's mind. It's dying and it's connected to Agatha.'

Agatha started to glow purple, and the Doctor wasn't sure if she would survive; time was in flux, and history could be rewritten. But then, the glow around Agatha and the glow in the lake faded, and she seemed to recover, passing out with a sigh.

'He let her go,' he observed quietly. 'Right at the end, the Vespiform chose to save someone's life.'

'Is she alright, though?' Donna asked in concern.

'Of course, the amnesia. Wiped her mind of everything that happened. The wasp, the murders . . .'

'And us,' Donna realised. 'She'll forget about us.'

'Yeah, but we've solved another riddle . . . The mystery of Agatha Christie. And tomorrow morning . . . her car gets found by the side of a lake . . . A few days later, she turns up in a hotel at Harrogate with no idea of what just happened.' Time wasn't in flux, he realised, it was waiting for him to complete the circle, to avoid the paradox.

'Come on, help me get her into the professor's car, we have to take her to the TARDIS, and then on to Harrogate.'

They carefully lay her on the rear seat, and set off back to Eddison Manor. When they drove up to the manor, they could see that everyone in the house was trying to clear up after the evenings excitement of having a giant wasp trash the place. They were able to carry Agatha to the TARDIS and set off for the Harrogate Hotel.

They landed in a grove of trees that lined the driveway leading up to the hotel. Donna still found it weird that only minutes ago it was the middle of the night, and now it was the following morning. Talk about jet lag. Agatha had regained consciousness, but was still groggy and dazed by the link to the Firestone. Donna took her hand and gently led her out of the TARDIS and guided her towards the hotel.

She looked back at them, thinking that somehow she should know them, but couldn't quite remember.

'No one'll ever know,' the Doctor told her as they watched her amble towards the hotel.

'Lady Eddison, the Colonel, and all the staff . . . What about them?' Donna asked.

'Shameful story, they'd never talk of it . . . Too British . . . while the Unicorn does a bunk back to London town, she can never even say she was there.'

'What happens to Agatha?'

'Oh, great life . . . Met another man, married again . . . saw the world. Wrote and wrote and wrote.'

'She never thought her books were any good though, and she must have spent all those years wondering.' They turned around and went back into the TARDIS.

'The thing is,' he reflected as he threw his coat over the coral strut. 'I don't think she ever quite forgot. Great mind like that, some of the details kept bleeding through. All the stuff her imagination could use. Like, Miss Marple.'

'I should have made her sign a contract.'

'And.. where is it, where is it, hold on.' He knelt down and lifted one of the floor gratings. 'Here we go.'

He lifted out an old wooden chest. 'C. That is C for Cybermen.' He took out a disk and dropped it on the upturned lid. 'C for Carrionites,' he said taking out the glowing green crystal ball that contained the alien witches and shaking it, followed by a sculpture of Caesar's head.

'And Christie, Agatha. Look at that,' he said holding up a paperback edition of 'Death in the Clouds' with a wasp on the cover.

'She did remember.'

'Somewhere in the back of her mind, it all lingered . . . And that's not all. Look at the copyright page.'

Donna took the book and opened it. 'Facsimile edition, published in the year . . . five billion!'

'People never stop reading them. She is the best selling novelist of all time.'

Donna sighed. 'But she never knew.'

'Well, no one knows how they're going to be remembered. All we can do is hope for the best. Maybe that's what kept her writing . . . Same thing keeps me travelling. Onwards?' he asked with a smile.

'Onwards,' she said. They stood up and he activated the time rotor. 'But not dressed like this, eh?' she said as they watched it pump up and down. 'I'm goin' to get changed, an' then I'm goin' to make . . . what time is it in 'ere?' She was still a bit time lagged by jumping from the middle of the night, to the early morning.

'It's five twenty three in the afternoon,' he told her.

'Right, then one's goin' to make One's dinner,' she said in her posh accent.

'Ooh, make two while you're at it, I'm starving.' He gave her his cheeky smile.

After a bit of tinkering with the console, the Doctor sniffed the air, and could smell the aroma of cooked food coming along the corridor. He followed his nose to the kitchen / dining room, and was confronted by a very elegant and sartorial dinner laid out on the table. Donna had obviously been inspired by Lady Eddison's kitchen, and there was enough food to feed an army.

'Are we expecting company?' he asked sarcastically.

'Oi, there's barely enough here for just you,' she said seriously. 'Sit down and start eatin', put some meat on those skinny bones.'

He smiled at her motherly attitude and sat down, picking up his knife and fork, and helping himself to a selection of meats and vegetables.

'I bet when you walk past the railings of a school, the kids go 'now we see you, now we don't, now we see you, now we don't',' she said with a cheeky smile.

'I have to keep in shape,' he said in his defence. 'There's a lot of running in this life that I lead.'

After the thoroughly enjoyable meal, they retired to the living room for the lady of the house (or TARDIS) to enjoy an evening of catching up with Eastenders, whilst the gentleman enjoyed reading 'Death in the Clouds', by one Agatha Christie.

'Well, I'm bushed,' Donna said with a yawn. 'I'm off to bed. Where are you takin' me tomorrow?'

'Ooh, I know, let's hit the beach . . . how does Brazil sound? Rio de Janeiro . . . you could be the girl from Ipanema,' he said, waggling his eyebrows.

'Brilliant! I'll see you in the mornin' . . . goodnight.'

'Night Donna,' he said as he finished reading his book.

In the early hours of TARDIS time, he had a feeling about his psychic paper, the feeling he usually got when there was a message for him. He had last felt it when the Face of Boe had called him to the hospital in New New York. He went through to the console room, and rummaged through the pockets of his jacket that he'd left over the hand rail. He took the black wallet out of the pocket and flipped it open.

'The library come as soon as you can. X' was all it said.

'What?' he asked the empty room. The Library was a planet-sized library that was commissioned by Felman Lux during the 50th century.

'Come as soon as you can?' he read out loud. That sounded fairly urgent, not desperate, but quite important. The thing that really piqued his interest though, was the 'X' at the end. Who, out of all the people that he knew would finish a psychic message with a kiss.

['Doctor, she is returning,'] Lucius had said in Pompeii, having gained the temporary gift of prophecy when the explosion of Vesuvius caused a rift in time which echoed back to the Pyrovillian alternative.

'Could it be true?' he asked himself. Could Rose have found a way back to this universe? He knew it was impossible, but so was the fact that they had travelled to the alternate universe in the first place, and Rose would certainly finish a psychic message with a kiss. There was only one way to find out for certain, Brazil would have to wait for another day, the chance of seeing Rose again was just too important to wait.

* * *

'Books,' the Doctor said as he shut the console down with his usual flourish. 'People never really stop loving books.' He grabbed his coat off the coral strut and put it on as he moved quickly down the ramp. Donna set off after him, her disappointment of not going to Brazil just yet, put to one side as she picked up on his excitement.

When she stepped out of the TARDIS, that excitement waned. They were in a large, dimly lit area, with light seeping in through high windows, illuminating the dusty air as it made its way to the floor. The Doctor though was still enthusing about books, she suspected his enthusiasm was caused by having met Agatha Christie, and staying up all night to read one of her novels.

'Fifty first century,' he continued. 'By now you've got holovids, direct to brain downloads, fiction mist, but you need the smell . . . the smell of books, Donna. Deep breath.'

They moved out of the dim room onto a huge, marble staircase which led down to a balcony overlooking a futuristic city. The Doctor continued his narration as they walked down the steps.

'The Library. So big it doesn't need a name, just a great big THE.'

'It's like a city,' she said, looking at the view beyond the balcony.

'It's a world . . . literally, a world. The whole core of the planet is the index computer. Biggest hard drive ever, and up here, every book ever written. Whole continents of Jeffrey Archer, Bridget Jones, Monty Python's Big Red Book. Brand new editions, specially printed.'

He looked over a balcony onto roofs below. 'We're near the equator, so . . .' He licked a finger, and held it up to test the airflow. 'This must be . . . BIOGRAPHIES,' he shouted making Donna jump, and his voice echo around the halls. 'I love biographies.'

'Yeah, very you. Always a death at the end,' she said sarcastically.

'You need a good death. Without death, there'd only be comedies. Dying gives us size.'

Donna picked up a book from a stand on the balcony.

'Way-a,' he said, snatching the book off her. 'Spoilers.'

'What?'

'These books are from your future. You don't want to read ahead . . . spoil all the surprises. Like peeking at the end.'

'Isn't travelling with you one big spoiler?' she pointed out.

'I try to keep you away from major plot developments. Which, to be honest . . . I seem to be very bad at,' he said distractedly as he looked around. 'Because you know what? This is the biggest library in the universe . . . So where is everyone?'

They stopped and listened, all that could be heard was a gentle breeze. 'It's silent,' he said, moving over to an information terminal and using his sonic screwdriver on it.

'The library?' she asked, walking over to see what he was doing.

'The planet . . . The whole planet.'

'Maybe it's a Sunday,' she suggested.

'No, I never land on Sundays . . . Sundays are boring.'

'Well, maybe everyone's really, really quiet,' she whispered, after all, it was a library.

'Yeah, maybe. But they'd still show up on the system.' He continued to search the terminal display. He was looking for one particular life form, a pink and yellow human female.

Donna's initial enthusiasm had gone now. She wanted to be on Ipanema beach, drinking pina colada's and chatting up some hunky locals. 'Doctor, why are we here? Really, why?'

When she had woken up this morning and gone to the kitchen / dining room for breakfast, he had told her that he was taking a quick detour before going to Brazil, and as usual, he was being very cagey about it.

'Oh, you know, just passing,' he said distractedly, still studying the screen.

'No, seriously,' she said, trying to pin him down for an explanation. 'It was all let's hit the beach, then suddenly we're in a library. Why?'

'Now that's interesting,' he said, ignoring her question

'What?'

'Scanning for life forms. If I do a scan looking for your basic humanoids, you know, your book readers, few limbs and a face, apart from us, I get nothing. Zippo, nada. See . . .? Nobody home,' he said, showing her the display that showed a filtered humanoid life form count of two.

'But if I widen the parameters to any kind of life . . .'

The screen counted up and registered an 'Error 1,000,000,000,000 life form number capped at maximum record'.

'A million, million, gives up after that . . . A million, million.'

They looked out again over the cityscape. 'But there's nothing here. There's no one,' Donna said.

'And not a sound. A million. million life forms . . . and silence in the library.'

'But there's no one here, there's just books. I mean, it's not the books, is it? I mean, it can't be the books, can it? I mean, books can't be alive,' she tried to reason, but wasn't convinced.

They both reached cautiously, slowly for a book, afraid that it might bite or something, when a voice made them jump.

'Welcome.'

Donna pointed up the steps. 'That came from here.'

The Doctor let out his breath. 'Yeah.'

They went up the steps and returned to the dim, dusty room. To their left was a circular desk, which Donna presumed was where you took your books to have them stamped (or whatever the fifty first century equivalent was). A vaguely humanoid sculpture next to the desk made a ticking sound as it turned its head and spoke with a female voice from a small face on its surface.

'I am Courtesy Node seven one zero slash aqua. Please enjoy the Library and respect the personal access codes of all your fellow readers, regardless of species or hygiene taboo.'

'That face, it looks real.'

'Yeah . . . don't worry about it.'

'A statue with a real face, though?' she asked uncertainly. 'It's a hologram or something, isn't it?' she ventured.

'No . . . but really, its fine.'

The Node spoke again. 'Additional. There follows a brief message from the Head Librarian for your urgent attention. It has been edited for tone and content by a Felman Lux Automated Decency Filter . . . Message follows. Run. For God's sake, run. No where is safe. The library has sealed itself, we can't. Oh, they're here. Argh. Slarg. Snick. Message ends. Please switch off your mobile comm. units for the comfort of other readers,' the unemotional voice said.

'So that's why we're here,' he said, confirming Donna's suspicions that it wasn't his love of Agatha Christie novels that had brought them here.

'Any other messages, same date stamp?' he asked the Node urgently.

'One additional message. This message carries a Felman Lux coherency warning of five zero eleven . . .' it started to say in its unhurried fashion.

'Yeah, yeah, fine, fine, fine. Just play it,' he shouted impatiently.

'Message follows. Count the shadows. For God's sake, remember, if you want to live, count the shadows. Message ends.'

They looked around the large, empty hall.

'Donna?' he said quietly, not wanting to disturb anything that might be lurking nearby.

'Yeah?' she said nervously.

'Stay out of the shadows.'

'Why, what's in the shadows?' she asked, but he didn't answer. Instead he walked back towards the TARDIS, and she thought for a moment, just the slightest slither of time, that they were going to leave whatever was in the shadows to its own devices, and make a quick getaway. But no, he walked past, and through a door opposite the grand staircase, into a long room filled with shelf upon shelf of books as far as the eye could see, and four floors high.

'So . . . we weren't just in the neighbourhood,' she said, looking up at the impressive collection.

'Yeah, I kind of . . . sort of lied a bit. I got a message on the psychic paper.' He held it up in front of her, and the message appeared, as if being written by an invisible pen.

'The library come as soon as you can. X'

'What do you think? Cry for help?' he asked her.

She took the wallet off him and turned it to face him. 'Cry for help with a kiss?' she said teasingly.

'Oh, we've all done that.'

'Who's it from?' she asked. Whoever it was, they knew him well. 'Come as soon as you can', not desperate, but intriguing enough to draw him in like a moth to a flame. And the kiss; that was a nice touch, leaving him wondering if it was from his lost love, Rose.

'No idea,' he said honestly. He knew who he'd like it to be from, but that was personal.

Donna wanted to see if she was on the right track. 'So why did we come here? Why did you . . .'

The Doctor was looking down the rows of book shelves. 'Donna,' he interrupted.

She saw the look of concern on his face, and looked in the same direction. Rows of lights were going out, and the darkness was getting closer, bringing with it the shadows.

Now, she was getting scared. 'What's happening?'

'RUN!' he shouted, pulling her into a run, away from the approaching darkness.

They came to a door between the book shelves, and he tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge.

'Come on,' he pleaded at the door.

'What, is it locked?'

'Jammed. The wood's warped.'

'Well, sonic it . . . Use the thingy,' she said, making the action of using the sonic screwdriver with her thumb.

'I can't, its wood,' he said in frustration.

'What, it doesn't do wood?' A futuristic, multi purpose tool, and it doesn't do wood? He'd be better off with a Swiss Army Knife, she thought.

No, wait, he'd had an idea. 'Hang on, hang on. I can vibrate the molecules, fry the bindings. I can shatterline the interface,' he babbled.

'Oh, get out of the way,' she said angrily. She showed him how they vibrated molecules in Chiswick, and gave the door a powerful kick, causing the double doors to fly open. They rushed inside, and he found a book to put through the handles, effectively barring the door.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Well, it was fair to say that this had been one of Donna's weirdest experiences so far. She had started the day in THE library, and met a woman who knew the Doctor really well, you could almost say intimately, and it wasn't Rose Tyler. Weird thing number one, he had never met River Song before, and had no idea who she was.

Then, because she didn't have a space suit, the Doctor had tried to teleport her into the TARDIS. Weird thing number two, she ended up in a psychiatric hospital because she had dreams about the Doctor and the TARDIS, which led to weird thing number four . . . no, three, she met a gorgeous bloke with a stutter and married him. I mean, how weird was that? Oh, yeah, it was number three weird.

Weird thing number four, she had two beautiful kids, and not just weird, but deeply troubling and traumatic number five; they disappeared from their beds, from existence, right in front of her. And now, here she was, looking for a family that she remembered and loved, and never had. That had to be weird thing number six, didn't it?

She had suddenly appeared in the dusty old hall where the TARDIS had originally landed, surrounded by thousands of people, four thousand and twenty two to be exact, and immediately started to look for her husband, Lee. She then spotted a familiar face come through the double doors, accompanied by Strackman Lux, who had found him handcuffed to a conduit near the core.

They ran towards each other and hugged. 'Your back!' he laughed, swinging her around.

'Yeah, it was the weirdest thing, when you teleported me to the TARDIS, I ended up in a hospital, then I met this bloke and married him. We had children and everythin', and then they disappeared, it was horrible.' They released the hug, and she could see a haunted look in his eyes. 'Where's that woman, Professor Song and her mates?'

The look he gave her told her everything without him having to utter a word. 'Oh Doctor, I'm sorry. We don't have much luck, me, an' you, I lose a husband and kids I never had, an' you lose a girlfriend that you've yet to meet. What are we like, eh?'

'Yeah,' he said sadly, and then his expression changed. 'That man who was your husband when you were in the core, he might be one of the people here, why don't you go and ask at the desk over there.'

She made her way towards the circular desk, through the throng of four thousand and twenty two people, only to head back towards the Doctor, who was waiting by the door to the grand staircase, a few minutes later.'

A computer generated voice had started giving instructions to the assembled masses.

'Please be patient. Only three can teleport at a time. Do not state your intended destination until you arrive in your designated slot.'

'Any luck?' the Doctor asked her as she reached him.

She leaned against the door, side by side. 'There wasn't even anyone called Lee in the library that day,' she said sadly. 'I suppose he could have had a different name out here, but . . . let's be honest . . . he wasn't real, was he?'

'Maybe not.'

'I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word . . . What's that say about me?'

'Everything,' he said without thinking, and then realised what he said when she looked at him. 'Sorry, did I say everything? I meant to say nothing. I was aiming for nothing. I accidentally said everything.'

'What about you? Are you alright?'

'I'm always alright,' he said, giving his stock answer.

'Is alright, special Time Lord code for . . . really not alright at all?'

'Why?'

'Because I'm alright, too.' They looked at each other, and their faces told them more than their words. They weren't alright, but they would be, because they'd got each other.

'Come on,' he said, looking down and doing something he hadn't done since his time with Rose, he held her hand. He didn't have that tingle up his spine, or the feeling that all was well with the universe, but it felt good to hold the hand of a friend.

They walked down the steps to the balcony, and the Doctor placed River's diary on the balcony rail, tracing the shape of TARDIS panels on its cover.

'Your friend . . . Professor Song . . . She knew you in the future, but she didn't know me,' she told him. 'What happens to me? Because when she heard my name, the way she looked at me . . .'

'Donna,' he interrupted. 'This is her diary . . . My future . . . I could look you up . . . What do you think . . .? Shall we peek at the end?' he said. He thought he knew what her answer would be, but he had to give her the option, he owed her that.

Donna looked up to the ceiling and then into his expectant eyes. 'Spoilers . . . right?'

He smiled at her. 'Right.' He was right, she'd made the right choice, and he was so proud of her. He took River's sonic screwdriver out of his inside pocket, and put it on the diary, a final resting place to the memory of Professor River Song.

'Come on,' he said, moving away and up the steps. 'The next chapter's this way.'

As they climbed the steps, and headed into the now busy hall, that final gesture got him thinking, and the thought disturbed him. His future self had given River that sonic screwdriver, and that posed a question. He stopped suddenly, turned around, and ran back down the steps, with Donna close on his heels.

'Why? Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that?' he asked himself. 'Thing is, future me had years to think about it, all those years to think of a way to save her, and what he did was give her a screwdriver,' he said. 'WHY WOULD I DO THAT?' he shouted.

He examined the sonic, and found a small panel that he managed to unclip. Underneath, were two of five green LED lights, and one of those started to flash.

'Oh! Oh! Oh, look at that.' His future self hadn't just given her a sonic screwdriver, he'd given her a way to live forever in the library computer; he'd given her a neural relay. 'I'm very good!' he said excitedly.

'What have you done?' Donna asked him.

'Saved her,' he said with a manic grin, showing her the green LED's.

He started to run, and run, and run. He ran through hallways and reading rooms, leapt over book trolleys, past rows and rows of book shelves. 'Stay with me! You can do it, stay with me! Come on, you and me, one last run!'

He ran until he got to the gravity platform that led down to the computer core. The platform would take too much time, and as usual, for a Time Lord, that was the one thing he didn't have enough of.

'Sorry, River, shortcut!' he said, pointing the sonic at the interface and disabling it.

'Platform disabled,' the computer said, and he dived head first into the gravity well, using the sonic to control his landing.

He ran to the computer core interface and shoved the end of the sonic into the receptacle. He noticed that all the lights were out now, and he didn't know if he had been in time. Once again, it all came down to time. Blue, spider webs of energy, crackled around the interface and up the cabling. When he looked over to the Charlotte Node, she was smiling at him. He'd done it, he'd made it in time, River Song had left the library, River Song had been saved.

Donna stood by the doors of the TARDIS, still watching people standing on the teleporter pads, just in case she saw her dream husband. It had been SO real, and it was difficult to forget him, or to come to terms with the fact that it had all been an illusion. Eventually, everyone was gone, and one of the library staff came up to her.

'Are you alright Miss? We are the last to go now; do you need a teleport out?'

'Er, no, it's alright, I've got a ride thanks . . . you go and get off now.' She took the key out of her pocket, and opened the TARDIS door, stepping inside, and closing it behind her. She walked wearily up the ramp to the console, turned around, and perched her bum on the edge, watching the doors, and waiting for the Doctor to return.

A while later, the Doctor burst through the double doors and walked into the deserted hall, noticing that it was exactly as it was when they had arrived. He stood in front of the TARDIS, and remembered a conversation with the enigmatic River Song.

['You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them. and it's like they're not quite finished. They're not done yet. Well, yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor. Now my Doctor, I've seen whole armies turn and run away. And he'd just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor in the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere,'] he remembered River telling Anita.

['Spoilers. Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers. It doesn't work like that,'] he'd told her.

['It does for the Doctor,'] she had said proudly.

['I am the Doctor,'] he had declared.

['Yeah . . . Some day . . .

Some day . . .

Some day . . .']

Her words echoed in his memories. He raised his arm, and clicked his fingers, willing the TARDIS to fulfil her prophecy.

The doors flipped inwards, spilling light onto the wooden floor in front of him. He could hear the throb of the TARDIS inside, and a smile spread across his face. He saw Donna push herself off the console and watch as he walked inside, her face full of concern. He walked up to her and looked into her eyes, before turning and looking at the doors. Donna followed his gaze, as he raised his arm and clicked his fingers, closing the doors.

'When did you learn to do that then?' she asked quietly.

'Just now, when I was outside . . . River said that the Doctor she knew could do it.'

'Oh, right,' she said, not really understanding how someone he had never met could know him so well. 'How'd it go with River, were you in time?'

He gave her a triumphant smile. 'Oh yes! Her body might be gone, but her soul lives on in the core, with her friends, Proper Dave, Other Dave, Miss Evangelista, and Anita.'

'Is it alright for us to leave now?' she asked quietly, she'd had enough of the biggest library in the galaxy for one day . . . no, for a lifetime.

'Yeah, time to move on,' he said as he started up the Time Rotor and put them into the Vortex.

* * *

'What's that noise?' Donna asked as the Time Rotor made a strange whirring belching noise.

'Indigestion,' replied the Doctor, looking up from the console and seeing the look of exasperation on her face. 'Not mine, the TARDIS. We're passing through an ion storm.'

'Is that dangerous?'

'Nah, not to us, but it can be to other vessels caught unawares. I'll just drop out of the Vortex and see what's happening.' He made adjustments to the console with his usual flourish, and they heard the gentle "clomp" as the TARDIS landed.

'C'mon.' he said with his excited grin. 'Let's go see.'

This was the bit Donna loved the most about travelling with the Doctor. The "let's go see" moment, where anything could be outside those ordinary looking doors.

'Oi! Where do you think your goin'?' Donna said, catching him by the elbow and pulling him away from the door. 'This is my bit,' she said with a big grin.

The Doctor grinned back, her excitement was infectious and it was the "let's go see" moments that kept him travelling, especially when he had a friend to experience it with. He heard her gasp and "oh-my-God" from outside, and followed her out.

'Where is this?' she asked, her eyes wide in amazement. 'I'm on a space ship. I've never been on a space ship before.'

'You're on a space station to be completely accurate, and what do you mean "you've never been on a space ship"? Remember the Sontarans when you were beamed aboard their ship in the TARDIS? And technically, the TARDIS itself is a space ship, so you've been in a space ship in a space ship.'

'Well, yeah, I know all that. But this one's got windows,' she said wide eyed as she walked over to a huge, curved window looking out over the futuristic exterior of a space station, hanging in space.

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and strolled over to join her. 'Oh, it's Garazone Central out near the Orion star system, one of humanity's first major space stations for interstellar commerce. Ion storms are fairly common in the surrounding space. It looks to be in its heyday, so it must be the 25th century.'

She leaned on the handrail and looked down on a transparent dome. 'My God, there's grass and trees down there, and a lake! There's a lake in space.'

'I know. Come on, let's go down and hire a rowing boat.'

He grabbed her hand and hurried over to one of the transparent cylindrical elevators. Donna squealed with delight as she looked down through the transparent floor as the cubical descended. From this viewpoint, she could see a number of domes held out from the central core of the station on huge arms.

The cubicle stopped silently and the door slid around. The wide passageway leading to the dome was a hive of activity, with all sorts of creatures going to and fro, and golf buggy vehicles rolling by.

'Let's hitch a ride,' the Doctor said as a buggy with side facing seats went by. They hopped on and grinned at each other as they headed into the dome.

With the landscaped interior of the dome, it was like being in an urban park similar to Hyde's Park in London, or Central Park in New York. The buggy slowed down as it turned in a wide circle, ready to head back out again into the centre of the station.

'What the hell are those?!' Donna exclaimed as she looked out over the grass lawns. 'Have those horses really got six legs?'

'Oh brilliant. Hexequinus steeds, I've always wanted a go on one of those. Apparently, with the six legs they're supposed to be a smoother ride than the four legged variety.' All thoughts of rowing on the lake were forgotten, with the chance of an opportunity to ride a six legged horse.

'Can we have a go? Can we? Please?' Donna said, sounding like a little girl wanting to ride the donkeys at the seaside.

'Last one in the saddle is a Raxacoricofallapatorian.'

The Doctor was right of course, the ride was smooth. Donna thought it was like riding a biological motorbike. And so did the Doctor by all accounts, as he galloped by out of control shouting "where's the off switch?"

Donna's steed was less temperamental however and she was able to chase after him through the Garazone Bazaar, eventually easing her mount in front and slowing him to a stop.

'Where did you learn to ride a horse in Chiswick?' he asked, slightly miffed that she was better at it than he was.

'Went on an outwards bound adventure holiday with the school. I only went to get out of lessons. Didn't take to the rock climbin' or canoein', but horses, I just tell 'em what's what and they're as good as gold,' she said with a smile.

'Why doesn't that surprise me?'

They eventually made it back to the paddock, and the Doctor made good on his original suggestion to go rowing on the lake. The rest of the Garazone Central day was spent like a day in any park. They strolled through the Bazaar that they had previously galloped through, had a picnic and bought ice creams, while the Doctor reminisced about Rose and the ice creams they'd had, and the picnics they'd shared.

When he had travelled with Martha, she had never wanted to hear about Rose, always seeming to see her as an absent rival. Donna on the other hand could see how good it was for him to talk about her, and loved to hear about their escapades together.

'This place is amazing. There's just SO many aliens,' Donna observed as they strolled back towards the TARDIS.

'Don't you just love meeting all these different people? Rose was a bit overwhelmed on her first trip out. It was Platform One, she was 19, and had never been abroad to foreign parts, let alone alien ones.'

'It sounds like she soon got used to it and came to love it though, just like I do.'

He put the key in the door and pushed it open for her. As she stepped inside, he took one last look around Garazone Central. 'Yeah, she'd have loved it here,' he said to himself quietly before stepping inside and closing the door.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Donna was rudely awoken from a really nice dream where she was snogging Paul from accounts, at the 'Nice 'n' Bright Double Glazing Christmas party. There was a God awful racket coming from the direction of the console room.

'Now what?' she asked herself as she threw the duvet off her and quickly got dressed.

As she stepped out of her room, the noise abruptly ceased, and the gentle, throbbing hum of the TARDIS returned. When she arrived at the console room, the Doctor was running around the console in his usual, manic style.

'So, what was that noise then?' she asked crossing her arms, still slightly annoyed at being dragged away from Paul in accounts.

'Eh, what noise?' he said distractedly, still fiddling with the controls.

'The sound like a bag full of cats being taken to the vets to be neutered.'

'Oh, that noise. It's good and bad news.' He stopped, frowned in thought, and then gave her an enormous grin. 'What a brilliant description.'

'Good and bad news?' Donna asked sceptically, knowing that the Doctor thought it was good to run into a bad situation to try and make it better.

'The good news: Earth,' said the Doctor.

Donna winced as the klaxon started up again. The TARDIS rang with the sound. A tooth-drilling, ear drum shattering siren guaranteed to send the listener clinically insane after ten seconds. She gripped the console to stop the sound sweeping her away.

'And?' she growled.

The Doctor beamed a great big smile. 'That's a distress signal! We get to help, again.' He pulled on a great woolly coat. 'It's weird. Your lot shouldn't be able to send a distress signal like that. Not in this time frame. Not this kind of distress signal.'

'What kind of distress signal?'

'The loud annoying distress signal.' He consulted a reading on the TARDIS console, whistling as if he couldn't hear a thing.

Donna nodded. 'Turn it off!'

The Doctor frowned. 'What did you say?'

'Turn. It. Off!'

'Eh?'

Donna bared her teeth. 'I said: Turn—'

'Hold on. I'll turn it off.' He stabbed a button and the noise stopped. 'What did you say?'

The console room startled Donna with its sudden silence. She shouted anyway. 'Doctor! I'll kill you!'

'What? What did I do?' He stood half and half out of his bulky coat, a picture of bruised innocence. Donna thumped the door controls and stormed out. The Doctor listened. There was an expectant pause. The Doctor tried to hide his smile as he heard Donna scream.

'Oh yeah,' he shouted. 'The bad news: Antarctica.'

'Snow!' said Donna. 'You did this to me on that Ood planet. We've done snow. What is it you've got against tropical? My nose is turning red.'

The Doctor bounded over the snow. 'Donna, your nose turns red at the drop of a cat. Going red is your nose's first and greatest talent.'

'Some people would tire of being so rude. They would run out of steam, get bored, but don't you give in to them. You crack on.'

He seemed fascinated by the snow. 'They say the Inuit have fifty words for this.'

'I've got a few myself,' Donna muttered. Then she saw it. She scrabbled over a drift and there it was. Down a gentle snowy slope about a mile ahead: a vast ice sheet spread out to the horizon like a gigantic skating rink. Two tracked vehicles were parked over a particularly dark patch of ice.

Men, nothing but smudges in the distance, stood in a ring, their arms outstretched. They had planted flags, marking the boundaries of the dark patch.

'What is that?' asked Donna. 'That's a buried spaceship, isn't it?'

'They found something,' said the Doctor. 'Under the ice.'

Excited, he put one hand over his mouth and pointed with the other. White powder puffed up around him as he stamped his feet with excitement. 'Look. Snow-Cats. Tracked vehicles. Oh, brilliant. I love Snow-Cats.'

'You love everything. So it's a mission to dig up a crashed flying saucer.'

'I love missions to dig up a crashed flying saucer!'

'I thought you might.'

The Doctor jumped up and down. 'Let's get involved.'

The TARDIS waited, as it had waited so many times before. It hummed to itself, feeling the cold Antarctic snow dropping and settling onto its casing. The TARDIS was very good at waiting. This time, however, it didn't wait as long as it might have expected.

About ten metres from the front door, the dropping snow suddenly shot apart in all directions, leaving a man-shaped hole in the air. A figure filled that hole, and it was a figure the TARDIS would have recognised: handsome angular face, dark friendly eyes, straight hair.

The man shivered in his shabby suit. He danced up and down to pump warmth into his plimsolled feet. He watched the Doctor and Donna trudging through drifts towards the doomed expedition. Smiling, he thought of what waited for them there. Bit scary, if truth be told.

Next, he held up a large metal key and kissed it. He was ever so excited. 'The TARDIS! I can't believe it!' He punched air then clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his giggles. He cast wild glances towards the Doctor and Donna to check they weren't looking back.

He held up the key. 'Moment of truth,' he told it.

The man walked to the TARDIS, unlocked the door and

stepped inside. The door closed. Despite the howl of the polar wind, the voice was still just about audible from outside. It was the voice of the happiest man on the planet.

'Oh. My. God. I'm actually standing in the console

room. Yes!' Sixty seconds later, the TARDIS disappeared.

* * *

'The heart of Planet 1,' said the robot Butler, looking down into the purple glow of the chasm in the laboratory floor. 'Ready for you, Doctor. You and Planet 1; together for ever.' The robot chuckled. 'At last: no more errors; no more decadence, just purpose.'

The Doctor did not react.

'Why so glum?' The Butler was in a chatty mood. 'You're about to become a god!'

The Doctor said nothing.

'All the experience, imagination and wonder locked up inside you will keep Planet 1 occupied for millennia. We're all very excited. Who knows, perhaps eventually we will find a way of moving through the universe together. Imagine that? Planet 1, mobile. We might even learn to create a new universe, whole dimensions, just for us.'

The giant cables that had emerged from the chasm writhed in anticipation, like restless fingers. Sebastiene, the now deposed former ruler of Planet 1 wriggled in his restraining energy bubble. 'Traitor,' he said tonelessly.

The Doctor looked sad. 'All that energy, all those resources, and you don't know what to do with yourselves.'

The Butler pulled up an air-screen. 'Excuse me,' he said. 'Before you start trying to talk me out of this, I need to perform a bio-check. So we know you are who you say you are. You remember.'

Sebastiene had recruited the Doctor's number one fan Baris, and surgically altered him to be an exact copy of the Doctor to use as a lure and a decoy. Molecular scanning lights flashed up and down the Doctor's floating body. Operator robots read information.

'Jolly good,' the Butler said. 'Now. This will take only a few seconds. And then we'll have you.' The giant cables reared and pounced. An alarm sounded. The Butler froze. The cables retreated. Operator robots looked up in horror.

'I'm not the Doctor,' said the person who looked like the Doctor, sounded like the Doctor, and acted like the Doctor. 'I'm a robot bomb. And you've just armed me.' The robot Doctor jumped into the chasm that was the central control of operations for Planet 1.

The Butler and the rest of the operator robots looked up to see the real Doctor and Sebastiene attaching a device to the floating body of the Doctor look-alike Baris. All three disappeared. There came a great mechanical roar of pain and anger and fear from the depths of Planet 1 as the Doctor robot detonated.

The Sebastiene and Donna robots smiled in their restraining energy bubbles. Sebastiene gave the Butler a little wave . . . and promptly exploded.

The Doctor, Sebastiene and Baris shimmered and dropped onto the snow. The air shimmered again, and Donna appeared. Along with a familiar blue box. Donna gave the Doctor a thumbs-up.

'Intelligent Molecular Technology,' said the Doctor brightly, relieved that he had been able to use the planets transmat devices to escape. 'What a marvellous concept.'

Somehow, this made them all giggle. They couldn't help themselves. For a good minute, all they did was choke. Not the most obvious sign of a good time but a good time nevertheless.

'With the amount of explosive in those robots, we've obliterated half the northern hemisphere,' said Sebastiene. He looked pleased with his statement.

'Does that mean Planet 1 is dead?' asked Donna.

The Doctor inspected the TARDIS. 'Oh I doubt that. We gave it a little sting; a headache. Enough of a distraction to get away.'

He looked at a small opening in the frozen ground. Down below, large blocks of grey machinery throbbed and clunked. Pipes hissed with releasing steam as the robot shaping devices cooled. Automatic cables detached and went dormant.

'I don't get it. What the hell just happened?' asked Baris.

'Like I told Donna,' said the Doctor, 'you're never more than a kilometre away from a robot workshop. Even Planet 1 can't think of everything.'

'The Doctor Trap,' said Donna, referring to the Doctor's double bluff, triple bluff and quadruple bluff he'd used to confound the logic circuits of all the robots trying to catch him. She pulled her parka tight around herself. 'Can we go?'

'Eh?'

Sebastiene was suddenly gloomy. He seemed disappointed. 'Without someone to organise its systems, Planet 1 is nothing but a lifeless machine. Once I was kicked out, there was no creative mind behind its reasoning. Until it could claim the Doctor, Planet 1 had to think for itself. And we out-thought it.'

'Sebastiene knew there was a robot factory here, so we went underground and built some robots . . .' said Donna.

'Disguised them as us and gave them up to Planet 1. To blow up the Chateau,' continued the Doctor. 'We gambled that Planet 1 would instinctively want full power and rush to get the Intelligent Molecular Technology back up and running. Once it did that, we were able to transmat in and rescue you and the TARDIS.'

Sebastiene sneered. 'Dumb. Very dumb. If Planet 1 had trusted me more, we would never have succeeded.'

'A machine is a machine . . .' The Doctor patted the

TARDIS. 'No offence.'

They stood in the snow of the fake Antarctica and looked at each other. The Doctor, Donna, Sebastiene, Baris. The blizzard, artificially generated though it may have been, howled round them. The distant sun was setting.

'Well,' said Donna, 'nice meeting you.'

They stayed looking. 'You know I'm coming with you,' said Sebastiene.

'No,' the Doctor replied. 'Baris, but not you . . .'

Baris was rubbing his arms. The end of his nose was dripping ice; otherwise he still looked like the Doctor. 'You can't just leave him,' he said. 'Once Planet 1 is recovered it's going to come hunting.'

'Good,' said Donna.

Sebastiene smiled at the Doctor. 'You misunderstand.' He opened his coat and produced a short, gleaming sword. 'Rustled it up in the lab when you were fussing over the robots. Thought it might come in handy. And, yes, I am an expert.'

The Doctor laughed. 'You misunderstand me, Sebastiene. When I say not you, I don't mean I won't take you. I mean I can't.'

Sebastiene twitched. 'No more games.'

'You're a construct. A product of Planet 1. You can't leave; you physically can't. Whoever you once were, now you are joined to Planet 1. It's what feeds you; what powers you. It's the price you pay for all your gadgets and long life and indestructibility.'

Donna began to back-pedal. She felt for the reassuring door of the TARDIS. 'That's all settled, then,' she said. 'Personally, I'd leave you here anyway.'

Sebastiene flashed the sword up. Its tip hovered a centimetre in front of the Doctor's nose. 'You're lying,' he

said. The doubt in his voice was clear. 'I'm not a robot. I'm not!' He recovered himself. 'Anyway, there's no harm in trying. Move.'

Something was breathing on Donna's neck. Something that smelled like overripe fruit. Dusty cloth tickled her hair. She saw Baris react in shock at whatever was crawling down the TARDIS behind her.

'Doctor . . .' he said. 'Doctor!'

They looked at Donna and gasped. She felt talons clasp

her shoulder and the sticky breath waft over her cheek.

'The Carpalian Witch,' said Sebastiene, a vibrant smile returning to his face. 'Oh, very good.' It was the last surviving member of the Endangered Dangerous Species Society, who Sebastiene had brought to Planet 1 to hunt the Doctor.

Donna glanced sideways to see a grotesque jaw stretching out from beneath a black hood. The jaw contained what appeared to be a cross between an insect's mandibles and human teeth. A voice like dry twigs spoke in Donna's ear.

'Did you really think to end the hunt so easily?'

Claws clasped Donna's face. 'Give yourself to me or the girl dies.'

Donna waited for the Doctor to say something. He didn't.

'Doctor . . .' she reminded him. 'A little rescuing here, please.'

Instead, he folded his arms and regarded the pair of them as if they were an interesting puzzle to be solved.

'The real question is,' he said, 'who are you after? The Doctor? In which case there's a choice of two. Sebastiene? Bit difficult to know which one of us is supposed to give ourselves up? Strangely enough, the only one you definitely don't want is Donna.'

Donna tried to stay calm. 'Doctor, stop talking and do something.'

'I'm the Doctor,' said Baris. 'Here . . .'

He took a step forward. The real Doctor held him back.

'No he isn't. Listen, you're between me and my TARDIS and that won't do. If you want Sebastiene, you go get him; otherwise, we're going to have words, and I'll finish you like I finished the rest of your stupid Endangered Dangerous Species Society. So make up your mind and act like you mean it.'

That did the trick. There was a pause as the Carpalian Witch drew in an insulted breath, bellowed an insect screech, then launched its black-hooded body at the group. Specifically at Sebastiene. He whooped for joy and brandished his newly forged sword. The Doctor and Baris stumbled backwards as the creature pounced.

Sebastiene stood his ground. He slashed at the Carpalian Witch, who howled and fell. A thickly furred limb lay thrashing in the snow.

'It's not dead!' Baris yelled as the Witch leaped up again. Claws extended, mandibles spitting, it launched itself at Sebastiene. He dodged as its talons raked his chest. Beating the creature back, he looked at the blood spilling down his tailored black coat.

'I-I'm hurt . . .' he whispered in disbelief. 'Why you . . .!' He took a step backwards, ready to launch a full-on attack, and fell through the hole into the robotics workshop. The Carpalian Witch squatted then sprang down after him.

'Run, Sebastiene!' the Doctor yelled. 'Run!'

He made to follow, but Baris held him back. 'I'll go,' he said. 'You've done enough. You need to get away from Planet 1. Now.'

The Doctor pushed him aside. 'After everything he's done, even if he escapes the Witch, every part of this whole planet is going to be after him. I have to try . . .'

With a surprising, new-found strength, Baris shoved him over. The Doctor fell onto a bed of snow.

'I'm the Doctor today, mush,' said Baris. 'Look, I do owe him. He made me the man you are today. So in a way, you will be trying.' He looked down at the hole and yelled. 'The Doctor to the rescue!' And he jumped.

They returned to the TARDIS and Donna was never going to leave it again; not until she knew for absolutely definite that the sunshine level outside was nothing less than Tenerife. Inside, it was lovely and warm. Really, really lovely and warm.

The Doctor was brooding over the console. He wasn't his usual self. Donna stopped there and told herself off. Don't talk about 'usual selves'. We've had enough trouble as it is.

'Sebastiene?' she asked instead.

The Doctor shrugged.

'You liked him, didn't you? A little bit? Eensy-teensy?'

He seemed to be talking to himself. 'Oh, he'll probably be all right. Deep down, he's a resourceful bloke. Even without the toys. Probably end up running Planet 1 again. Especially with Baris looking after him.'

'He couldn't leave the planet, you said so yourself. So don't worry about it.'

The Doctor looked up, as if suddenly remembering she was there. 'What do you mean?'

'He was a robot, wasn't he? You said he was reliant on Planet 1. You couldn't take him even if you wanted to.'

The Doctor gave her a look. A look that told her she should know better. 'Donna . . .'

She stopped. 'You mean . . . he wasn't? You mean . . . You lied?'

He didn't react. Not in any way whatsoever. Donna held a hand over her mouth. She began to giggle.

'Oh my God. You know what, if he ever susses, he's going to be really annoyed with you.'

The Doctor began to play with the TARDIS controls. A new energy coursed through him. 'Too complicated!' he announced. 'I'm done with complicated. I want explosions and spectacle and chases again.' He looked up at her, smoothed his wild hair back and gave her his widest grin. 'Let's do something simple.'

'Warm,' said Donna. 'That's all I want. Warm.'

'All right. Warm.' And with a laugh, he yanked the lever. 'I know just the place.'


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Midnight is an airless planet in the Xion system, composed mostly of diamond glaciers and mountains which had been colonised by humans. The planet's diamond-based geology was active, and diamond falls were a common occurrence, quakes were thought to be impossible though. Midnight even had a Sapphire Waterfall.

The planet had been left in silence for millions of years before humanity took over. The planet had no atmosphere and due to the destructive X-tonic radiation of its sun it was thought that no life was possible on the planet, be it carbon-based, hydrogen-based, silicates, gas beings or other.

Despite the hostile environment, the Leisure Palace Company turned it into a leisure planet to take advantage of its spectacular views. Since no human could walk on the surface or even touch the planet's diamonds, disk shaped Leisure palaces were lowered from space, with service buildings and garages scattered about underneath the support struts.

There was a spa, which had an Anti-gravity Restaurant, and a bus company called Crusader Tours offered sightseeing trips to the planet's picturesque locations, such as the Sapphire Waterfall, which had its own Waterfall Palace. Its other attractions included Winter Witch Canyon and the Multifaceted Coast.

The TARDIS landed in a service area of the spa, and they stepped out into a curved, concrete corridor.

'Oh very chic,' Donna said sarcastically, looking at the utility corridor.

'Hey, every high class establishment has to have services,' the Doctor told her. 'Come on, through here.' He pushed through a fire door and they entered a plush, reception area with comfy leather sofas, low tables, potted plants, fountains, and pleasant xylophone muzak playing in the background.

'Now, this is more like it,' she said with a beaming smile, looking up at the domed, glass ceiling, constructed from triangular panels. Outside, she could see diamond cliffs, reaching into the black sky, and reflecting the X-tonic sunlight.

They walked up to the reception desk, and the Doctor took out his psychic paper.

'Doctor John Smith, and Miss Donna Noble, competition winners for a day at the spa,' he said to the young lady at the reception.

She looked at the paper, and saw a complimentary, all inclusive day pass. 'Bad Wolf Entertainment Corporation, I don't think we've had that one before,' she said.

'Eh?' the Doctor said, frowning at the paper, to see where Bad Wolf had come from. It must have leaked through from his subconscious.

The receptionist smiled, and handed over two complimentary passes, and two glossy brochures. 'There we are Sir . . . Madam, on behalf of Leisure Palace Company; we hope you have a nice day.'

'Ooh, this is dead posh,' Donna said.

A man in a waistcoat and bowtie, walked towards them with a tray of drinks. 'Would Sir or Madam, like a complimentary glass of Champagne?'

'Not 'alf,' she said, taking a glass and having a sip. 'Forget Ipanema beach, why didn't you tell me there were places like this out here in space?'

'Let's have a seat over there, and we can have a look at these brochures.' They walked over to one of the domed walls, put their drinks on a low, glass table, and plopped themselves down on a sofa, which hugged and caressed them with their luxuriant fabric.

After a few minutes of perusing the pages, Donna had decided on an order of events. 'Right then, sauna first, followed by a massage, then a dip in the Jacuzzi . . . What about you?'

'Well, there's the crystalarium, with the finest example of single grain crystals in the galaxy, Then a demonstration of X-tonic radiation on complex molecular structures . . . oh, and look, a trip to see the Sapphire Waterfalls,' he said enthusiastically. 'Do you fancy that?'

She looked at him as though he had dribbled down his brown, pinstriped suit. 'Let me think . . . No. I'll stick with bein' pampered thanks . . . but if that's what floats yer boat, knock yerself out.'

He was momentarily disappointed by her refusal, but then his enthusiasm returned for the crystalarium and X-tonic demonstration.

They finished their Champagne, and stood up. 'Okay then, enjoy your pampering, and we'll meet up later,' he said.

'See ya later, and try not to get arrested or anythin', I want a nice relaxin' day,' she said with a lopsided smile.

He gave her a grin, and a wink, then set off to find the crystalarium.

Donna was on a sun lounger by a pool, a glass of pink cocktail on the table beside her. The poolside was all purple walls and marble columns, and very much in the style to which she could easily become accustomed. A waistcoated, bowtie wearing attendant approached her with a purple, cordless phone on a silver tray.

She knew who it was, and what he wanted. 'I-said-no,' Donna told him, deliberately emphasising each word.

He was on a public phone in the departure lounge of the Crusader Tours garage. Through the glass frontage, he could see the track laying 'shuttle' that looked like the fuselage of a small jet aircraft. Passengers were walking past, and entering the arched access tunnel to board the vehicle.

'Sapphire waterfall . . . It's a waterfall made of sapphires. This enormous jewel, the size of a glacier reaches the Cliffs of Oblivion, and then shatters into sapphires at the edge. They fall a hundred thousand feet into a crystal ravine.'

'I bet you say that to all the girls.'

'Oh, come on. They're boarding now. It's no fun if I see it on me own. Four hours, that's all it takes.'

'No, that's four hours there and four hours back. That's like a school trip, I'd rather go sunbathing.'

'You be careful, that's X-tonic sunlight.'

'Oh, I'm safe. It says in the brochure this glass is fifteen feet thick.'

'Alright, I give up; I'll be back for dinner. We'll try that anti-gravity restaurant . . . With bibs.'

'That's a date, well, not a date. Oh, you know what I mean. Oh, get off.'

'See you later.'

'Oi, and you be careful, alright?'

'Nah. Taking a big space truck with a bunch of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight? What could possibly go wrong?' he said before hanging up the phone.

It was only later, when the return of the shuttle was delayed, and she'd asked at reception, did she find out what could possibly go wrong. There had been an 'incident' apparently, the shuttle had developed a fault, and a second vehicle had to go out and bring them back.

'Well, are they alright?' Donna had asked the receptionist.

'I'm sure everything is fine Madam. The information we have is that the pilot logged a call that the engine had failed, and they needed a tow back to base.'

'You might be sure everything is fine young lady, but you don't know the Doctor. Where can I get more information?' Donna said, now worried that not only might the Doctor be in serious trouble, but also that if he didn't come back, she would be stranded here with no way home.

'Updates will be displayed on the information boards over there,' the receptionist said, pointing to a huge, multimedia screen on the wall to the side of the reception desk. 'Please have a seat; I will get one of the attendants to get you a drink?'

Hours later, the information board said that the Crusader Fifty rescue vehicle had docked at the arrivals lounge, and the survivors disembarked. A weary looking Doctor walked into the pool area and saw Donna. She walked up to him and gave him a hug, which he returned so strongly that she knew something really bad had happened.

They sat at one of the tables. 'What do you think it was?' she asked, after he'd told her what had occurred.

'No idea,' he said with a distant look in his eyes.

'Do you think it's still out there?' He didn't reply, what ever it was had scared him, and that was worrying. 'Well, you'd better tell them . . . this lot.'

'Yeah, they can build a Leisure Palace somewhere else . . . Let this planet keep on turning round an X-tonic star, in silence.'

'Can't imagine you without a voice,' she said quietly.

He attempted a smile, but it came out lopsided. 'Molto bene.'

'Molto bene,' she echoed.

'No, don't do that . . . Don't . . . don't.'

* * *

The Doctor and Donna made their way through the throng of guests who were congregating around the reception desk of the leisure palace, trying to find out what was going on. The staff manning the desk seemed to know as much (or as little) as the guests.

The official line was that there had been an incident on a Crusader Tours shuttle. Unfortunately, there had been some deaths, and as a precaution the leisure palaces were being evacuated while the Health and Safety Executive investigated.

'Evacuated?!' a rather plump, outraged gentleman said. 'Do you know how much I paid for this holiday?' There were murmurings of agreement from other members of the crowd.

'All guests will be refunded,' a tall man in a sharp suit with immaculate hair announced. 'And the Leisure Palace Company will compensate you for any inconvenience and expense incurred.'

The Doctor held open the fire door to the service corridor for Donna. She turned and looked around the plush reception area with its comfy leather sofas, low tables, potted plants, and fountains.

The pleasant xylophone muzak was still playing in the background, giving the impression of calm normality, whilst unbeknown to the guests, a creature lurked outside in the wilderness, and it could be coming to find them at any moment.

The only thing that belied the air of normality was the automated announcement, asking guests to return to their apartments and pack their things ready for departure. Donna looked at the Doctor, her shoulders slumping as she sighed. She walked past him into the corridor and on towards the TARDIS.

'I think you need to take a break,' Donna said as the Doctor walked slowly around the pulsating console. He was never one for giving away what he was thinking, but it was obvious to her that he was troubled by his experience on Midnight.

'Eh?' he said, giving her a puzzled frown.

'Y'know, somewhere safe. Somewhere where you don't have to run from dangerous aliens or risk your life to save a civilisation.'

'Somewhere boring you mean,' he said with a grin.

'If your idea of boring is when there is no one trying to kill you, then yeah, boring's good.' She thought about boring and raised a finger. 'And while we're on the subject of boring, when can we go somewhere where you don't act like a know-it-all teacher on a school trip,' she teased, trying to lighten the mood.

'Know-it-all teacher?' he said with the pretence of offence in his voice.

'Well, you've got to admit; you do go on a bit. You'll be smokin' a pipe and sewin' leather patches on the elbows of yer jacket next,' she said with a cheeky grin.

'Okay, how's about somewhere I haven't been before, so we'll both be seeing it for the first time?' he said with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

'That sounds more like it,' she agreed.

He went over to the monitor and started searching the universe database. 'I've not been to the Andromeda Galaxy much, being as its Two and a half million light years from this one.'

'Hmmm,' she said, being non committal.

'The planet Uhlala,' he announced. 'Apparently it's the height of sophistication and civilisation.'

'Now you're talking,' she said more enthusiastically, expecting the Andromedaen version of champagne and cocktail parties.

'Two and a half billion light years,' she said, her eyebrows raised and a gentle smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, 'and you've brought me to an art gallery?' Now who was being boring?

'Two and a half million light years,' corrected the Doctor, pulling Donna back out of the path of something that resembled an upright anteater, studded with drawing pins, trundling down the street, 'and it's not just an art gallery.' He sounded almost hurt.

'If you're going to tell me it's "not just an art gallery" because it's got a shop that sells fridge magnets . . .'

'It might,' replied the Doctor, glancing away guiltily and tugging at his earlobe.

'You,' laughed Donna, 'are so transparent, you know that?'

'And you,' cut in a deep, buzzy voice that sounded like a talking chainsaw, 'are so in my way.'

Donna turned: right next to them, smack bang in the middle of the broad pavement on which they stood, was a robot. Although it took Donna a few seconds to work that out.

From the waist up, it was like a bronze version of some Greek god, all bare metal muscles, jawline and attitude. From the waist down, however, it was a different story: instead of legs it had caterpillar tracks.

Donna's first reaction to it was that it was an ordinary person (well, as ordinary as you could get, looking like someone had vandalised something from the British Museum with a can of metallic paint) who'd lost his legs in an accident and had half a JCB grafted on.

'Sorry,' she said automatically.

'I should think so,' buzzed the robot – and only then did Donna realise that it wasn't a creature of flesh-and blood. The eyes were cold and glittering, and she realised the skin wasn't skin at all, but a curiously fluid metal, reflecting back, madly distorted, her own face.

'If you're going to stop to converse, I suggest you move over there.' And it raised an imperious finger and pointed to the other side of the pavement.

This was too much for Donna.

'Well,' she said, drawing herself up.

('I wouldn't,' she vaguely heard the Doctor whisper.)

'If you're going to be quite so rude,' she continued, ignoring him, 'I'd suggest that you move over there.' She pointed to the centre of the street, where four lanes of traffic were whizzing by at stomach-clenching speed.

'Mate.' She added for good measure.

('I really wouldn't,' added the Doctor.)

The robot raised a haughty eyebrow and looked Donna up and down. 'Organics!' it spat, sneerily.

'That meant to be some sort of insult?' retorted Donna.

'Cos where I come from, sunshine, that wouldn't get you on Trisha, never mind Jeremy Kyle.'

('Donna . . .')

'Your words are gibberish,' said the robot dismissively. At this point, the Doctor cut in, grabbing Donna by the arm and pulling her to one side.

'Donna! When in Rome . . .'

'Sure you don't mean Pompeii?' she replied, acidly. 'Who does he think he is?'

'He probably thinks he's a local who's just come across two offworlders who don't know the rules and regulations for using the streets, is what he probably thinks.'

Donna saw the Doctor flash a bright, apologetic smile at the robot.

'Don't smile at him – a simple "excuse me" would have done. No need for all that attitude.'

'Perhaps in the future,' said the robot wearily to the Doctor, revving up its gears as its base rotated (although its top half stayed facing them), 'you could train your pet better?'

Donna's mouth fell open but, before she could say anything, the Doctor put a firm arm around her shoulder and moved her out of the path of the robot – which, without another word, roared off down the street.

'Pet?' she gasped.

'Pets are very highly thought of round here,' said the

Doctor quickly – but without much conviction.

'Pet?' Donna shouted after the creature, but it had vanished into the crowd. She turned back to the Doctor, open mouthed.

'Can you believe that? You said you were taking me somewhere civilised and sophisticated. I'd get more sophistication and civilisation at West Ham on a Saturday.'

The Doctor gently moved Donna back against the building, out of the path of the crowds streaming around them. Having been to West Ham on a Saturday with her, he couldn't argue with her on that one.

'For once, I'd like to meet a nice robot,' she said, still fuming. 'There must be some. Somewhere. I mean, with the whole universe to choose from you'd think there'd be one . . .'

'Remind me to take you to Napir Prime,' the Doctor said. 'The perfect hosts – well, that's what it says in The Rough Guide to the Isop Galaxy. Never been myself, but I've heard good things.'

Donna raised a sceptical eyebrow. 'From the robots I've seen so far, the strike rate's pretty low.'

'Don't judge a whole class of beings from just three examples,' the Doctor chided, checking out the monumental skyscrapers that lined the street. 'Remember how you were when you saw your first Ood . . .'

'That was different. They weren't robots – they just looked a bit . . .' She smiled at him, hoping to defuse the tension a little. 'Ood.'

'That's probably what they thought when they saw you.'

He gestured at a glossy, dark green building just a few yards along. 'Come on – let's see if there's any robot art in here. Might give you a new perspective.'

'Not me that needs a new perspective,' Donna grumped as she followed him through doors that said a cheery 'Good afternoon' as they opened.

'Art,' the Doctor began, sounding ever-so-slightly pompous, 'is a window on the human soul. Or the Andromedan soul, obviously,' he added with a tip of the head.

Donna raised an eyebrow.

A creature a little like a squishy bedside table, with a crown of glinting, metallic eyes, paused in front of them, apparently to observe the slab of dull, grey marble in a glass case that the Doctor was also peering at. Although, Donna realised, it might have been observing them.

She gave a tiny, awkward smile. Just in case. Having already offended, however unwittingly, an Andromedan, she thought she ought to err on the side of the caution with any new ones she came across.

'If you'd prefer,' the Doctor whispered, 'I'd be more than happy to take you somewhere filled with danger, excitement and death. Your call.'

The bedside table ambled off, making a chuckling, coughing sound. Donna held out her hands, palms up, weighing up the options.

'Danger, excitement and death?' Her hands moved up and down. 'Art gallery?'

'Philistine,' grinned the Doctor. 'We could combine the two and visit the Third Stained Glass Empire of – ooh, hang on!'

And suddenly, Donna was standing on her own, watching him dart across the black mirrored floor of the art gallery towards a large display case.

With a sigh, she trudged after him. She loved art. Really, she did. She'd had a copy of that sunflowers picture on the wall at home. That was art. Proper art. Not just bits of stuff stuck on a board and sprayed with grass cuttings. Or half a Mini coming out of the floor. Or a slab of grey marble.

She caught up with him, almost colliding with a trio of tall, painfully skinny blonde women who'd just entered this particular room in the gallery. They looked awkward and stilted, their faces impassive.

'Sorry,' she whispered, skirting around them. They watched her go silently.

The Doctor was leaning forwards, his nose squidged up against the display case inside which, on a slender glass spike, sat something that looked like a rusty truck wheel, encrusted with fragments of diamanté.

'Donna!' whispered the Doctor, beckoning her forwards. 'What d'you make of this?'

She peered at it. 'You're going to tell me that it encapsulates the eternal struggle between The Pussycat Dolls and Girls Aloud, aren't you?'

'That's next door,' he said. 'No – this is much better.'

'Go on then, Sister Wendy, what is it?'

'Well, I don't actually know what it is, but whatever it is, it's a bit more than just art.'

'Is it?' Donna tried to stifle the yawn that she could feel bubbling up.

The three supermodels – or whatever they were – had separated and were all standing around the exhibit that was so fascinating the Doctor, although he didn't seem to have noticed them. There was something slightly odd about the trio, though: something measured and shifty. Like burglars casing a house, figuring out the right time to nip in and steal the DVD. Never mind the fact that, as far as she could tell, they were all identical.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, activated it, and waved it around near the case. Seconds later, he pulled a puzzled face and popped it back in his pocket.

'Just wait here,' he said, looking around. 'I'm going to find the gallery's owner.'

'Couldn't you just read the brochure?' asked Donna.

'I have. It's rubbish. Back in a sec.'

One of the supermodels, dressed in a plain grey trouser-suit with creases so sharp you could cut yourself on them, glanced at her. She smiled back.

'Art,' she said vaguely, uncomfortably. 'Great, isn't it? Window on the human soul. Or Andromedan soul,' she added for good measure.

The supermodel just stared at her – and then at her two companions. Art-lovers, thought Donna. Don't you just love them— the thought was cut off as she spotted the greasy patch on the glass that the Doctor's nose had left. In the pristine, snooty environment of the gallery it looked horribly out of place, and Donna was tempted to leave it there.

But she was an ambassador for Earth, wasn't she? She didn't want the locals going around saying what mucky pups humans (and Time Lords) were, especially with these three women paying such attention to the exhibit. So, whipping out her hanky, she stepped forward to give the glass a bit of a clean – at the very same moment that a wave of prickling static swept across her skin, and the whole room flared brilliant, snowy white.

'Oi!' shouted Donna as the glare subsided, leaving sparkly traces on her vision. 'What was—'

She stopped as she realised that somehow they'd managed to redecorate the art gallery in the few seconds that she'd been blinded. Instead of a wide, airy space with a shiny black floor and white walls, they'd turned it into a lower, pokier space, all purply-black swirls. The walls around her curved, giving the impression of being inside half a hard-boiled egg.

The display case and the supermodels were still there, although the lights inside the display case had gone out, leaving the diamanté truck wheel looking even more like a piece of old junk than it had before. It began to dawn on her that maybe – just maybe – she wasn't in the gallery any more . . .


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Donna and the Doctor stood by the TARDIS and watched the bizarre little group, led by a jumping, squeaking little mechanical life form called Weiou (who'd clearly become so attached to his new specs that Donna suspected he'd be wearing them for ever), head off into the distance. In the valley below them was the biggest theme park she'd ever seen. From a long way off, they could hear the cheers and screams from a thousand mechanicals, all keen to find out what it was like to be a Squidgie.

'Is that the end of them, then – the Cult of Shining Darkness?' Donna asked. Being caught up in a galactic plot by a bunch of nutters to bring all the robots under their control, had not been her idea of taking a break.

'Shouldn't think so,' said the Doctor. 'It's a state of mind more than an organisation. There'll be millions more like them out there. Thinking the same, mean-spirited, tiny minded thoughts. Scared of anything that's different, that they don't understand. And they'll always be there, ready to blame someone else for the state of the universe.'

Donna sighed and linked her arm through his. He looked at her. 'You OK?'

Donna pulled a 'maybe' face, gazing down into the valley. 'You go through life, you know,' she said. 'Thinking you're a good person. Well, maybe not always a good person. Sometimes just not a bad person. You get up every day, go to work or college or whatever,' she added. 'You watch the telly, go on holiday. All that stuff. And you just assume it's the way it is. What your mum and dad tell you, what you see on the news, what you read in the papers. You don't question it, unless it's something about Posh's latest frock, or the Royals or what-have-you. You just, y'know, take it all in, thinking that anyone who thinks different is wrong.'

'Welllll,' said the Doctor slowly. 'They usually are. Especially when you're a Ginger Goddess.'

Donna banged her head against his shoulder. He would never let her forget that; trying to convince a bunch of apes that she was their Goddess so that she could recover another one of those rusty truck wheels encrusted with fragments of diamanté. They had been parts of the cult's equipment to help them carry out their evil plan.

'Nah,' she said dismissively. 'It's not all that, godhood.' She paused and breathed in the alien air of Pasquite, so full of strangeness that it almost hurt. 'Travelling with you . . .' Donna stopped. 'Travelling with you, seeing all this stuff, risking life and limb – it scares the willies out of me, you know that.'

The Doctor raised cautionary eyebrows. 'We can always go home, you know. Back to Chiswick, back to temping, holidays in Egypt – although I'd recommend Mexico, by the way – back to normality . . .'

Donna smiled and shook her head. 'Meeting all these robots – all these machines, all these aliens . . .' She paused. 'What is "normal" anyway?'

The Doctor pointed to little group, a few hundred yards away: two machines, looking a bit like upright sunbeds, were walking along. On their shoulders were two kids – two Squidgie kids – laughing and squealing as the sunbeds leaned this way and that, pretending they were about to drop them.

'That's normal,' he said. 'Just people, being people.'

They stood in silence for a while, watching Pasquite's yellow sun drift towards the horizon, listening to the noise, breathing in the smells of food and flowers and oil.

'People,' echoed Donna. 'Just people.'

'Oi, don't start that again,' he said jokingly, remembering their time on Midnight.

'Oh, sorry!' suddenly realising what she'd just done. 'I wasn't thinkin' . . . well not about that anyway. I was thinkin' about what you said about goin' back to Chiswick.'

'Really?' he said worriedly. Had she had enough of the excitement and adventure?

She saw the look on his face. It was the same look that he'd given her at the Atmos factory. 'To visit. It must be coming up to anniversary of when Dad . . . Well, I'd just like to be there for Mum and Granddad.'

'When was it?'

'Fifteenth of May.'

'Okay then, in we go,' he said as he opened the door. 'We've got a date with the fifteenth of May.' He thought about what he'd just said. 'Actually, the fifteenth of May is already a date, but you know what I mean.'

* * *

 **Friday, 15** **th** **May, 2009.**

 **Turnham** **Green** **Church.**

 **Off Chsiwick High Road.**

 **Chiswick.**

'Oi!'

A word / phrase / guttural noise, spluttered with a splash of indignation, a twist of sarcasm and a great gulp of volume. No matter how hard he tried, the Doctor couldn't help but sigh every time he heard it. Usually because the indignation, sarcasm and especially the volume were all aimed in his direction.

He sighed and turned back to face Donna Noble, Queen of the 'Oi's. And she wasn't there. Just the TARDIS, parked between two council dumpsters. Quite neatly, if he said so himself.

Oh.

Ah.

Right.

'Sorry,' he said to the TARDIS door, then walked back and unlocked it, revealing Donna stood on the threshold.

'I assumed you were already outside.'

'Which bit of "I'm right behind you" didn't quite make sense, then?' Donna asked oh-so-politely, with a characteristic head wobble that actually meant she wasn't feeling all that polite at all. 'Which bit of "wait for me" bypassed your hearing? Which section of "I'm just putting on something nice" vanished into the ether?'

There was no way for the Doctor to worm out of that one. So he just shrugged. 'I said I was sorry.'

'"Sorry"?'

'Yeah, "sorry". What else do you want?'

'Are you "sorry" that you didn't hear me? "Sorry" that you locked me inside your alien spaceship? Or "sorry" that you hadn't even noticed I wasn't with you?' Each time, Donna pinged the word 'sorry' so it sounded like the least apologetic word in the English language and took on a whole new meaning that linguists could argue over the exact implication of for the next twelve centuries.

'No way I can win this,' the Doctor said, 'so I'm just gonna let it go, all right?'

Donna opened her mouth to speak again, but the Doctor reached forward and put a finger on her lips. 'Hush,' he said.

Donna hushed. And winked. 'I win!'

And then she gave him that fantastic, amazing grin that she always did when she was teasing him – and he gave her that sigh that admitted he'd been caught out yet again. It was a game. A game that two friends who'd gone through so much together played instinctively with one another. Familiarity, friendship and fun. The three Fs that summed up the time shared by these two adventurers.

She slipped an arm around his and pulled him close. 'So, what's the skinny, Skinny?'

The Doctor nodded towards Chiswick High Road and the hustle and bustle of the traffic, and quickly dragged her out onto the main street, ready to get lost in the crowds. Except there weren't any. Indeed, there weren't really very many people around at all, just a couple of kids on a skateboard on the opposite pavement and an old man walking his dog.

The Doctor raised his other hand. 'Not raining,' he

said.

'Well spotted, Sherlock,' said Donna. 'Sunday?'

'You wanted Friday the fifteenth of May 2009, Donna. That's what I set the TARDIS for.'

Donna laughed. 'In which case it's probably a Sunday in August 1972.'

The Doctor poked his head into a newsagent, smiling at the man behind the counter, who was listening to his MP3 player and ignoring his potential customer completely.

The Doctor looked at the nearest newspaper. 'Friday 15th May 2009,' he confirmed to Donna.

'So where is everyone?'

'Maybe it's lunchtime,' the Doctor suggested. 'Or maybe Chiswick's no longer the hub of society it was a month ago. Shall we walk to your place?'

'You're coming?'

The Doctor looked as though the thought of not going with Donna hadn't crossed his mind. 'Oh. Umm. Well, I was going to.'

'Doctor, why are we here?'

'It's the first anniversary of your father's death.'

'And, grateful as I'm sure she is for you saving the world from the Sontarans, I'm not quite sure my mum's gonna be overjoyed to see you, today of all days.'

'Your granddad will.'

'Yeah? Good, take him out for a pint tonight in the Shepherd's Hut, but to start with I want to see them on my own.' Donna was still holding his hand, and she squeezed it gently. 'You understand, don't you?'

He smiled. 'Course I do. Wasn't thinking. Sorry.'

'Let's not start that up again, yeah?' Donna let go of his hand. 'I'm gonna get some flowers and walk home. Why don't I meet you back here, this time, tomorrow?'

'Here. Tomorrow. Sold.' The Doctor winked at her and started walking off. 'Nice flower shop on the corner thataway,' he called out. 'Ask for Loretta and say I sent you.' He turned a corner and was gone.

Donna took a breath and walked in the direction he'd

pointed. A year ago. Today. Adipose. Pyroviles. Oods with brains in their hands. Even Sontaran probic vents, Hath and talking skeletons all seemed simple in comparison to what was going to happen this afternoon.

Because this afternoon Donna had to go back and be there for her mum and probably relive not just last year, but the days and weeks that had followed, funerals, telling people, memorials, notices in papers, sorting out the financial side of things, finding the will . . . None of it had been easy on Donna's mum. Hadn't been that easy on Donna, truth be told, and a year ago that would have been her overriding thought. Donna Noble, putting herself first.

But not now – just a short time with the Doctor had shown her that she wasn't the woman she had been then. And Granddad, poor Granddad, bringing back memories of Nan's passing, he'd bravely soldiered on for everyone else's sake, trying to sort out solicitors and funeral directors and suchlike.

Not that Mum had been weak or feeble – Sylvia Noble wasn't like that, and they'd been prepared for Dad's death, well, as much as you can be, but it still haunted her. She could see it in her mum's eyes; it was like someone had cut an arm and a leg off, and Mum just coped as best she could. Thirty-eight years they'd been married.

Donna sighed. 'Miss you, Dad,' she said out loud as she came to a halt outside a laundrette called Loretta's. Her phone buzzed with a text message, and she read it.

UMMM. ACTUALLY MIGHT BE WRONG. LORETTA'S MIGHT NOT BE FLORIST. SORRY.

How did he do that? He didn't even have a mobile as far as Donna knew. That sonic screwdriver perhaps? Was there nothing it couldn't do? Shoving the phone back into her coat pocket, Donna decided she'd be better off heading towards Turnham Green. She knew there was a florist there. Men. Alien men. Useless, the lot of them.

* * *

 **Four days, a few dead bodies, and the attempted take over of planet Earth by an ancient alien entity later.**

'Doctor? How many other people did Madam Delphi use and then chuck away?' Donna asked, referring to the artificially intelligent computer interface of the Mandragora Helix.

'Mankind were just tools to the Helix, tools to be used and abandoned.'

'Like Netty?'

The Doctor visibly winced. Henrietta Goodhart was the lady friend of Donna's grandfather Wilf, and the Doctor had asked her if she would agree to be host to the Mandragora Helix when he shut down the computer that was hosting Madam Delphi.

It was another example of one of those choices he had to make where in reality, he had no choice. Netty suffered from second-stage Alzheimer's, and he hoped that once the Mandragora Helix was in her head, he could bombard it with questions that would diminish it's power as it tried to repair Netty's brain so that it could remember.

She had agreed because both Wilf and Donna believed in the Doctor and trusted him without question. And fortunately for Netty; and for the man who loved her; and for his granddaughter who loved them both, it had worked.

But it was most fortunate for the Doctor, who had used her as a tool to defeat the Helix. Had he been justified in risking her life? His plan had worked. But what if it hadn't?

Donna could see these thoughts reflected in the impassive mask he wore at times like this. 'I'm sorry, that was below the belt.'

The Doctor looked at his friend. 'But true . . . and honest. I had to take the risk, Donna. Once, I might've done it with less conscience.'

'My God,' Donna said in mock horror. 'What have I done to you?'

The Doctor was serious. He took her hands in his. 'Made me a better person.'

Donna pulled her hands away, resorting, as always, to her standard jokes. 'Now then, don't touch what you can't afford, spaceman.'

They watched as Wilf and Netty started walking towards the main reception area of the hotel. 'Let's get them back to your mum, eh?'

Donna nodded. 'You coming too, then? I mean, you know what she's like.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Yeah. An older version of her daughter.'

'Oi!' Donna laughed and linked arms with the Doctor.

'Come on, spaceman. You've stared down Sontarans, Pyroviles and the Fishmen of Kandalinga. I don't really think my mum's that scary.'

'You don't?'

'Nah. Unless it's Monday. Mondays, she gets one of her 'mares on. Is today Monday?'

'Today is indeed Monday.'

Donna hugged his arm a bit tighter. 'My turn to protect you then, eh?'

* * *

 **Brookside Road.**

 **Chiswick.**

 **Friday, 22** **nd** **May, 2009.**

"What a difference a week makes" Donna thought as she watched the Doctor and her granddad enjoying tea on the back lawn, and she wasn't just thinking about how UNIT had taken care of everything and tidied up (well, in Britain at least).

When she had arrived last week, she'd had a row with her mother about how she was never there and never phoned or wrote. It was obviously something that Sylvia had been bottling up inside, and the anniversary of Geoff's death seemed to have popped her cork.

Now though, her mother seemed more at peace with herself and everyone else, including the Doctor! Even now, she was with Netty, trying on hats with alarmingly larger feathers and laughing at silly little things.

Donna wandered through the patio doors to hear a discussion in hushed tones about the Doctor's various adventures with 'the outer space robot people', followed by uproariously raucous laughter.

'You'll have Mum wondering what you're talking about, and then the game's up,' she told them in hushed tones.

'Not gonna tell her the truth, then?' The Doctor raised an eyebrow at both of them. A quick look shot between grandfather and granddaughter, followed in unison by 'Are you mad?'

'She'd definitely kill you this time,' Donna said.

'After killing me for keeping secrets,' Wilf agreed.

The Doctor shrugged and changed the subject. 'So, tonight's little shindig. What time are you heading off?'

They were going to the Royal Planetary Society for Wilf's Naming Honour dinner. He had discovered the Mandragora Helix's heavenly body, and it had been named 7432MOTT, after him.

'WE are heading off at seven,' Donna said.

'Brilliant,' he said unenthusiastically. 'I may need to nip back to the TARDIS to, um, change my suit.'

Donna shook her head. 'You are staying right here, Sonny Jim.'

'Here?'

'Here.'

'No TARDIS? No suit?'

'No TARDIS, no suit, no emergency calls from Princess Leia suggesting you're her only hope.' Donna swept up the tea mugs. 'More tea?'

The Doctor nodded sulkily, realising he'd be outmanoeuvred.

Sylvia emerged through the patio doors with a pile of pamphlets for the nursing homes, torn in half. She dropped them in front of Wilf. 'I think Netty should move in here, with us.' She touched Wilf's cheek. 'With you.'

Wilf stood up and hugged his daughter.

'No,' said Netty from behind them all, looking magnificent in her latest hat. 'My mind is clearer now for the first time in ages. But I can't move in here, Sylvia.'

'Why not?' asked Wilf.

'Oh, you dear, sweet man,' Netty winked at him. 'You make me so happy, but I'm not a fool. It'd be good to stay with you while I'm compos mentis. But if . . . when I slide again, you two aren't equipped to deal with me. The strain, the pressure, it's not fair on you. On either of you.'

She scooped up the ripped pamphlets. 'If it's all right with you both, though, I could do with a lift to some of these, see if we can't find one we all like.'

Sylvia touched Netty's arm. 'That's a huge decision,' she said. 'Are you sure, because I wasn't just saying what I said to be nice. I think you should be here, part of the family.'

Netty looked at the Doctor. 'What do you think, Doctor?'

The Doctor looked at Sylvia, then Donna, then Wilf. Then finally back at Netty. 'I think, Henrietta Goodhart, that you are a wise, sensible, strong lady who knows her own mind better than we all realised and will do what's right.'

He swiped the tea mugs from Donna's hands. 'And I'm not family, and I really want to bow out of this conversation gracefully, so I'll go and put the kettle on.'

He quickly walked back into the house, washed out the

mugs and filled the kettle, looking out of the kitchen window at the group in the garden and smiled to himself.

'Chicken,' said a quiet voice in the doorway.

'It's your mum and granddad's life, Donna,' he said. 'Not anything to do with me. Families. So not my thing.'

Donna joined him by the sink, looking out of the window. 'She seems so . . . in control now. So . . .'

'Normal?'

'Well, I might not have used that word exactly, but yeah.'

'It won't last.'

Donna didn't look at him. 'Why not? Maybe storing all that Mandragora energy cleared her neural wotnots, sorted it all out.'

'It's at least second-stage Alzheimer's, Donna. That's decay,' he replied quietly. 'It doesn't get better, it mostly gets worse. There's no miracle cure, I'm afraid, no magic solution for Netty. Her mind is a bit like a car windscreen. In some respects, the Mandragora Helix was the carwash, cleaning it up for a while. But it won't be long before all the dirt and insects and dust and scratches come back. I'm sorry.'

'It's so wrong.'

'Yup, it is. But life is never as convenient as we'd like. There's a million ailments, illnesses and diseases in the universe. If I believed something as malign as Mandragora could erase just one of them, I'd let it. I'd have allowed it to remain, doing some good. But there's never any miracle cures for things like that. Life's not like that. But it shouldn't stop people looking because one day, they will find an answer.'

'And that'd mean you were wrong.'

The Doctor laughed. 'Yup. It happens sometimes. And sometimes I like it. I wish I could find a way to help her, but I can't.'

'What about Granddad?'

'He's a grown man. He's made a rational, adult decision to look after her for as long as he can. That makes Wilfred Mott a Very Good Man in my book.'

'Mine too.'

'Perhaps we should stay for a while; help Netty get settled in somewhere. You could spend some quality family time with your mum?'

Donna shook her head. 'We're fine at the moment. Another week, we'd be under each other's feet, fighting, yelling, sniping.'

Through the window, out in the garden, they watched Sylvia and Netty going through the brochures.

'Where's that tea, then, eh?' said Wilf from behind the Doctor and Donna.

'Granddad,' Donna said suddenly. 'Maybe I should put you and Mum first. Perhaps I should stick around, help you out with Netty.' She looked at the Doctor. 'God knows, I'd miss you and all . . . that . . .' She pointed towards the sky. 'But maybe it's time to grow up a bit.'

Wilf hugged Donna. 'Sweetheart, what makes you happy?'

Without missing a beat, Donna looked at the Doctor.

'And you think I'd be happy knowing I was responsible for you giving all that up? Think Netty would?'

'But you and Mum, you need me . . .'

'Maybe, but we've managed OK for a while now. I'd rather know you were out there with the Doctor, doing to other planets and people what you did for Earth the other day.'

'And Netty?'

Wilf smiled sadly. 'She's ill, and eventually she'll go. So will I, and your Mum. And none of us will have seen and done all the marvellous and thrilling things you have. All them memories you'll have. Netty's illness could take her in five years or next Thursday. She could also walk in front of the Number 18 to Kew Gardens. I won't let her illness, or our sadness at you not being around, stop you living the life you've chosen. Out there. With him.'

The Doctor put an arm around Donna. 'I'll look after her.'

'Too right you will, mate, or there'll be trouble, remember?' Wilf switched the kettle off as it began to boil. 'Listen, I promise – me, your mum and Netty – we'll still be here next time you visit. I'm not letting Netty go anywhere, someone's gotta keep me on the straight and narrow.'

Wilf began making the tea. 'You're a smashing lady, Donna Noble,' he said. 'And I'm proud to know you and love you.' He kissed her cheek. 'Now, go call a cab, I'm not risking your mum's driving after she's had a couple of sherries tonight.'

He passed a mug of tea to them both, and raised his in a toast. 'To family. And bonds that can never be broken.'


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Rose Marion Tyler had been working for Torchwood in the parallel universe for around three and a half years now, and had become an experience Special Operations Field Operative. It had been nearly four years now since the worst day of her life, when she was separated from her love, the Doctor, and not a day went by where she didn't think about him, especially now.

It had been five months since the Government scientific advisor, Malcolm Taylor, had come back from a high level meeting with the British President, the American President, and a bunch of scientist from NASA on video conference, to tell her dad, the director of Torchwood, that the Hubble telescope had seen a galaxy at the edge of the universe, fade out of existence.

Reality was being manipulated, and the walls between universes were starting to thin and wobble. Would 'he' be able to come through, she wondered. Then she started to have doubts, after all, it had been nearly four years, did he still love her, or had he moved on? She had to keep telling herself that he loved her and would still be there for her.

And then, just this lunchtime, her dad, Pete, had called her to the laboratories to watch a demonstration of a theory proposed by Dr. Taylor and Dr. Roger Stansfield, a brilliant physicist from Oxford who had joined Torchwood to produce the original dimension buttons that brought her here in the first place. Was this going where she thought it was? Were they proposing what she thought they were, what she had hoped for these four, long years?

'We are writing a paper, 'The Dimension Cannon Effect of the Manipulation of Trans-Dimensional Quantum States',' Malcolm told them. 'Director if we can re-assemble and modify the lever room, we believe with the knowledge gained from the dimensional transport project, that we could build a working dimensional cannon,' Malcolm declared, pushing his spectacles onto the bridge of his nose.

Rose's jaw was on the floor. 'Are you tellin' me you will be able to send someone . . . me, through the void?'

'Once the cannon is energized and has opened a hole, it will be a piece of cake.' Malcolm pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose again.

'Oh-my-God!'

* * *

'Shan Shen is a planet inhabited by humans and humanoid species with a Chinese culture,' the Doctor told Donna as they stepped out of the TARDIS into a market street filled with flags, paper lanterns, pagodas and various crowded stalls. The sound of traditional Chinese folk music floated down the street, giving a magical atmosphere to the neighbourhood.

Donna looked up, and saw flying cars buzzing overhead, and beyond that, she could see several moons or planets, pale in the daytime sky, one of which had a ring system. They wandered in between the various stalls, the Doctor inspecting the contents of a wok, where some exotic, fragrant food was being prepared.

The Doctor found what he was looking for on one stall, and handed Donna a mug of foaming drink.

'Oh, ho, ho,' he chuckled as he looked at the frothy milk shake.

'I'd rather have a water,' she said, looking at the mug suspiciously.

'You are going to love it,' he said light-heartedly. 'One, two, three!'

They took a mouthful, and Donna squealed with delight. 'Lovely!' she said with a frothy moustache that he'd warned her about.

When they'd finished their drinks, they carried on through the market, looking at the bewildering array of fruits and vegetables on sale.

Donna had gotten ahead of the Doctor. 'You want to buy shukina? Or peshmoni? Most beautiful peshmoni in all of Shan Shen?' a young oriental girl asked her.

'Er, no thanks.' She looked back down the street, and saw the Doctor enjoying himself talking to a trader about a prickly looking vegetable.

She turned back down the street and carried on exploring, enjoying the sights, the sounds, and the beautiful alien odours of fruits, flowers, and incense.

'Tell your fortune, lady. The future predicted. Your life foretold,' a tanned Asian woman called her.

Donna turned to look at her. 'Oh, no thanks.'

The woman frowned. 'Don't you want to know if you're going to be happy?'

'I'm happy right now, thanks,' Donna said with a smile. She really was, this place was amazing.

'You got red hair . . . the readings free for red hair,' the woman said, indicating an open doorway, framed with dangling jade beads and red paper lanterns.

Donna laughed. 'All right, then.'

* * *

Jack Harkness sat at his desk in the Hub, the name of Torchwood Three in Cardiff, with that niggling feeling at the back of his mind that he'd had for months now. It wasn't that the Doctor was dead, although that in itself was bad; no, it was something else, something his years as a Time Agent had tuned his senses to.

Something wasn't right.

There were only three of them now, and although they were still grieving the loss of Owen and Tosh, the planet still needed defending, and so, life went on. It was only when the Doctor wasn't there to save them that they realised how much he did on his own to keep Earth safe.

He took a bottle of whiskey from the draw of his desk, poured a shot, and drank. He wiped tears from his eyes as he remembered that Christmas day when UNIT called and asked if he could identify a body they had recovered from under the Thames barrier.

When they pulled back the sheet, he'd breathed a sigh of relief, it wasn't him. Whoever the poor guy was, he wasn't the Doctor. But then they'd shown him the chest x-ray, with the two hearts, the sonic screwdriver, a key on a chain, and then the nail in the coffin, the TARDIS.

He knew then, because he could feel her, even before he used the key to go inside. He had closed the door, walked up the ramp, and gently caressed the console, before collapsing on the jump seat and breaking down in tears. The TARDIS had joined him, singing a Gallifreyan lament for the dead.

It was fair to say, that since that day, the Earth had gone to hell in a hand basket. The Royal Hope Hospital had disappeared, only to be returned hours later with only one person alive, a medical student, Oliver Morgenstern, who told the press that they had been taken to the moon by a Rhinoceros army.

Then there was that professor, what was his name? Lazarus; that was it. He'd tried to reverse the aging process and turned himself into a prehistoric mutant, which had run amok through Southwark, killing hundreds of people before a team of marksmen shot him.

Don't get him started on those damn weeping angels at Wester Drumlins. Gwen had gotten a call from an old police colleague, Billy Shipton, asking if they could help him on a case of missing persons. Jack had gone along to investigate, and quickly realised that the stone angels seemed to be moving around when he wasn't watching them.

He'd had to live through thirty eight years of time, moving to Bangkok to stay out of his own timeline, before he could go back to Wester Drumlins with a full platoon of UNIT soldiers. Each angel had half a dozen soldiers looking at them, as they were lifted by crane into a nuclear container filled with liquid concrete, before being taken to the black archive at UNIT headquarters.

After that detour, he was able to resume his own time line, only to see a large alien replica of the Titanic fall on London, killing millions of people and making large areas of southern England uninhabitable. The Titanic . . . was that some sick, alien idea of a joke.

He had since seen millions of people around the world killed, as they were turned into Adipose aliens. And now, there was the suspicion that the Atmos device fitted to the majority of vehicles was responsible for fifty two mysterious, simultaneous deaths all over the world. UNIT were asking for their expertise, and he, Gwen and Ianto would be leaving for London as soon as Gwen returned from saying goodbye to her husband Rhys.

Ianto Jones, drove the Torchwood Range Rover through the gates of the Atmos factory, along with a convoy of jeeps, trucks, a squad of UNIT soldiers and a car with Army top brass.

A soldier called out through a loudhailer. 'All workers lay down your tools and surrender.'

Captain Price spoke into her radio. 'Greyhound Six to Trap One. B Section, go, go, go. Search the ground floor. Grid pattern delta.'

'Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood.' He saluted the young captain. 'What are you searching for?' Jack asked her as they followed her towards the entrance of a factory that had the sign 'ATMOS' on it.

'Captain Marion Price, UNIT,' she said, returning the salute. 'Illegal aliens,' Price replied.

The soldier on the loudhailer spoke again. 'This is a UNIT operation. All workers lay down your tools and surrender immediately.'

'B section mobilised. E section, F section, on my command,' Price said into her radio, as she ran off to join the troops under her command.'

When all the excitement was over, the Torchwood team followed Price into the back of a pantechnicon truck.

'Operation Blue Sky complete, sir. Thanks for letting me take the lead. And, this is the Torchwood team, lead by Captain Jack Harkness. Captain, Colonel Mace.'

'Captain,' Mace saluted.

Jack returned the salute. 'Colonel . . . A nice set up you've got here,' he said, admiring the high tech interior of the truck.

'We've got massive funding from the United Nations, all in the name of Home World Security,' Price told them.

'A modern UNIT for the modern world,' Mace added.

'Tell me, what's going on in that factory?' Gwen asked.

'Yesterday, fifty two people died in identical circumstances, right across the world, in eleven different time zones. Five a.m. in the UK, six a.m. in France, eight a.m. in Moscow, one p.m. in China,' Mace informed them.

'Yeah, we intercepted that report,' Jack said.

'How did they die?' Ianto asked.

Mace was impressed that they had accessed a confidential report. 'They were all inside their cars.'

'They were poisoned. No toxins. Whatever it is, left the system immediately,' Price told them.

'What have the cars got in common?' Gwen asked.

'Completely different makes,' Price said. 'They're all fitted with ATMOS, and that is the ATMOS factory.'

'Our engineers have disassembled one of the units in a workshop inside the factory, perhaps you would like to examine it?' Mace offered.

'Well, that's why we're here,' Jack said with a smile.

Mace led them out of the truck and into the factory, where they went into a research and development workshop.

'And here it is, laid bare. ATMOS can be threaded through any and every make of car,' Mace said.

'You must've checked it, before it went on sale,' Gwen said.

'We did. We found nothing. That's why we thought we needed an expert,' Price said.

'Okay. So why would aliens be so keen on cleaning up our atmosphere?' Gwen asked Jack.

'A very good question.'

'Maybe they want to help. Get rid of pollution and stuff,' Ianto offered.

Jack shook his head. 'Do you know how many cars there are on planet Earth? Eight hundred million. Imagine that. If you could control them, you'd have eight hundred million weapons.'

Jack examined the dismantled unit. 'Ionising nano-membrane carbon dioxide converter. Which means that ATMOS works. Filters the CO2 at a molecular level.'

'We know all that,' Mace said. 'But what's its origin? Is it alien?'

'No, I don't think so. Decades ahead of its time though. Right team, what do we know about Atmos?' Jack asked. Price produced a folder and was about to consult it, when the Torchwood team went into action.

'Founded by Luke Rattigan, Child genius' Ianto said.

'Invented the Fountain Six search engine when he was twelve years old, made him a millionaire overnight,' Gwen added.

'Now runs the Rattigan Academy. A private school, educating students handpicked from all over the world,' Ianto finished.

Jack smiled at his two colleagues. 'Well then, it sounds like we need to pay a visit to young master Rattigan.' He turned to the colonel and saluted. 'I think we can take it from here Colonel.'

Mace and Price returned the salute. 'Very well, Captain, and thank you for your assistance.'

They left the Atmos factory, and drove to the country estate that contained the Rattigan Academy. They got out of the Range Rover, and walked up to a geeky looking nerd who was standing still whilst his students were running around the building.

'I suppose you're Torchwood?' the young man said, seemingly unimpressed.

'Hello,' Jack said, giving him his perfect smile.

'Your commanding officer phoned ahead.'

'We haven't got a commanding officer,' Gwen said tersely. 'Have you?'

Rattigan seemed to be rattled by Gwen, and Jack tried to keep him off balance. 'Let's have a look, then,' he said walking to the door of the academy. 'I can smell genius! In a good way . . . used to travel with this guy . . . now there was a genius.'

Inside a busy laboratory, several young people in orange tracksuits were working on various experiments. Jack's experience with fiftieth century technology, gave him an insight into what was going on.

'Oh, now, that's clever. Look, single molecule fabric, how thin is that?! You could pack a tent in a thimble.' He moved over to another workbench. 'Ah, gravity simulators, terraforming, biospheres, nano-tech steel construction. This is brilliant. Do you know, with equipment like this you could, ooh, I don't know, move to another planet or something?' Jack said, looking knowingly at the young geek.

'If only that was possible,' Rattigan said with an innocent smile.

'If only that were possible,' Ianto corrected. Jack and Gwen looked at him questioningly. 'Conditional clause,' he said with a shrug.

Rattigan's smile vanished. 'I think you'd better come with me,' he said angrily.

'You're smarter than the usual grunts we get from UNIT, I'll give you that,' Rattigan said as he led them into a large living room with a swimming pool, and a short, tunnel like piece of art in the corner.

'That's because we're Torchwood grunts, Gwen said. 'We do a whole different kind of grunting,' she finished with a cheeky grin.

'What exactly do you want?'

'We were just thinking. What a responsible eighteen year old. Inventing zero carbon cars? Saving the world,' Jack said.

'Takes a man with vision,' Rattigan said proudly.

'Mmm, blinkered vision,' Ianto said. 'Because ATMOS means more people driving. More cars, more petrol. End result, the oil's going to run out faster than ever. The ATMOS system could make things worse.'

Rattigan had a smug look on his face. 'Yeah. Well, you see, that's a tautology. You can't say ATMOS system because it stands for Atmospheric Emissions System. So you're just saying Atmospheric Emissions System system. Do you see, Mister Conditional Clause?'

Jack stepped in between Ianto and Rattigan. 'It's been a long time since anyone said no to you, isn't it?'

'I'm still right, though.'

Jack thought about the Doctor. 'Not easy, is it, being clever. You look at the world and you connect things, random things, and think, why can't anyone else see it? The rest of the world is so slow.'

'Yeah.'

Gwen joined in, trying to empathise. 'And you're all on your own.'

'I know,' Rattigan agreed.

Jack took an Atmos unit out of his grey coat pocket. 'But not with this. Because there's no way you invented this thing single handed. I mean, it might be Earth technology, but that's like finding a mobile phone in the Middle Ages.'

Jack moved over to the tunnel-like work of art. 'No, no, I'll tell you what it's like. It's like finding this in the middle of someone's front room. Albeit a very big front room . . . with a swimming pool, I quite like that.'

'Why, what is it?' Gwen and Ianto asked together.

'Yeah, just looks like a thing, doesn't it? People don't question things. They just say, oh, it's a thing.'

'Leave it alone,' Rattigan demanded.

Jack steps into the artwork. 'Me, I make these connections. And this, to me, looks like a teleport pod.' He pushed a button and vanished.

A few seconds later, Jack appeared in a flash of white light at a run, his grey coat flapping behind him.

'EVERYBODY RUN!' he shouted, not waiting to see if anyone was following. If they didn't follow him, they would die, because he was sure a Sontaran would be coming through the teleport in the next few seconds. Gwen and Ianto knew Jack well enough to know that if he said run, you ran first, and then asked, how fast, how far, before finally asking why.

They made it outside and leapt into the Range Rover, where Jack floored the accelerator and zig-zagged down the gravel drive, as bolts of red energy flew past and exploded each side of them.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

Torchwood started working on the Dimension Cannon, and it went quickly, due to having already covered most of the technology in the previous Dimension Button project. Six months later, and with all the test data in and verified, the team declared the cannon was safe and ready for use.

Rose was wearing her new leather jacket that Jackie had given her for Christmas. Her old black jacket brought back memories of that beach in Norway and she'd stopped wearing it. This new one was blue, a great fit and she loved it.

'Okay Rose, now remember you're a Special Operations Agent and you have a mission to complete. Remember your training and stay focussed.' Pete hugged her and kissed her forehead. 'Good luck soldier.'

'Thanks Dad, I'll see you in 30 minutes.'

'Alright Rose, we're up to full power and locked onto the Artron energy signature. You can launch when ready.' Malcolm told her.

'OK, here we go!'

'WHOP!'

She pressed the disk and disappeared from the top of Torchwood Tower, and staggered forwards onto a dark, London street, with police cars, blue flashing lights, the sound of helicopters, and crowds of people.

'I see he's been up to his usual tricks then,' she said out loud, her spirits raised by the scene of chaos. This was just the kind of thing he would be in the middle of . . . whatever this was. She went into field agent mode as she started investigating the area, and gathering information. She spoke to witnesses and bystanders at the barricade, and to a friendly constable, whose job it was to stop people walking down the street to the Adipose Industries offices where "an incident" had occurred.

Apparently, little cuboid aliens had been erupting from peoples bodies, and rising into the sky, to be collected by a giant spaceship that had hovered overhead. "Bingo", she thought, this is definitely his kind of thing; he must be around here somewhere. She went back to the barrier to have another scout around, she was running out of time and she needed to see him, she was desperate to see him.

A red haired woman came up to her. 'Listen, there is this woman that's going to come along, a tall blond woman called Sylvia,' she started to tell her. Why did all the nutters in London make a beeline for her? 'Tell her that bin there, all right? It'll all make sense. That bin there,' the woman said, and ran off around the corner.

Rose felt the Dimension Disk in her pocket vibrate with the ten second countdown for automatic recall. It was too late, she'd missed him. She walked away from the crowd so that she wouldn't cause a scene when she disappeared; this lot had seen enough weirdness for one night.

When she returned, it was time for a debrief, and the conference room at Torchwood contained section heads from technical, scientific, and field operation departments, Mickey was there because it was his home world.

'So Rose, there had been an incident with an alien ship and people having the fat 'sucked' out of them to make alien babies?' Pete asked her for the benefit of the meeting.

'That's what the police officer said at the barricade. I can't believe that I missed the Doctor, it's the kind of thing he would have been right in the middle of,' Rose replied, a hint of sadness in her voice.

'Our scans showed that you were right on top of the Artron energy. Is there anyone else that could have that amount of energy? Did anyone interact with you?' Dr. Stansfield asked.

'There was one woman, red hair, preoccupied with a rubbish bin, just before the transporter brought me back.'

Roger checked the data log on his laptop. 'Yes, that would be it. Do you know who she was? Could she have been the same species as the Doctor?'

'No, the Doctor was the last of his kind. I don't understand this,' Rose told them.

'Hmm. The internet data on your phone indicates that the Doctor thwarted a star shaped alien craft from invading the Earth in 2007, by their calendar, and prevented an alien ship from crashing on London in 2008, so he's certainly still active on Earth,' Chrissie Anderson, the Technical Lead Specialist announced.

'Oh my God! That first one must have been just after the Canary Wharf incident!' Rose exclaimed.

'We'll have to try another jump. If we can't find the Doctor, this mystery red head may know where he is,' Malcolm added.

'Malcolm, from the data we gathered from the phone, I think I might be able to set up a video link through the cannon. If the Doctor is near any kind of media screen then we should be able to talk to him,' Chrissie said.

'Good work Chrissie. I think that may be a way to proceed,' Malcolm replied.

Pete tapped his hands on the table. 'Right then, lets get up to the lever room and get started.'

In the lever room, they were using video imaging equipment to try and contact the person who was literally 'crackling' with Artron energy.

'Where is he?' Rose asked Malcolm as she stood in front of the camera, looking at the blank video screen.

'We're not sure at the moment. Ah, it's the TARDIS, quick, try and lock it down.' On the screen, Rose could see the familiar roundels of the TARDIS. Oh God she'd missed that ship.

She saw someone briefly on the screen. 'DOCTOR!' she shouted, but the image was gone.

'Was that the red haired woman?' Chrissie asked. It had only been a fleeting glimpse.

'Recalibrating,' Malcolm announced, 'He's not on Earth, er, parallel Earth anyway, he seems to be in some sort of passenger transport vehicle which is shielded against some form of intense radiation.'

'Can you open a channel to the on-board communication system?' she asked.

'We are just establishing a carrier wave through the cannon now.' Malcolm walked over and looked at the video screen in front of Rose. 'Ah, there we are, just a bit of fine tuning and . . .'

The view of a small flight cabin appeared on the screen. Rose immediately recognised the back of the Doctor's oh so fantastic sticky up hair.

'DOCTOR! DOCTOR!' she called out.

The image flickered and faded as they lost the lock on the signal. Rose looked desperately at her Dad.

'That was him. He was there. Get him back, quick,' she pleaded.

'I'm sorry Rose,' Malcolm said. 'The intense radiation is interfering with the signal. We'll have to wait until he leaves the planet so that we can get a stronger lock on him.'

Rose had tears of disappointment stinging her eyes. 'I was so close to talkin' to him.'

Pete came over and hugged her. 'Don't worry Sweetheart, we've proved it works. It's only a matter of time before we have you two together again.'

He wasn't crazy about the idea of losing his new daughter, and he knew Jackie would be hell to live with for a long time. But Rose's happiness was also important to him, and if that meant her moving to another universe to be with the man she loved, then so be it.

'Okay everybody, go grab some lunch and then we can try again,' Pete said.

After lunch, the team reassembled back in the Lever Room. Malcolm was really excited about the search results from the cannon. The Artron energy source was back on the alternate Earth, in London and was strong and stable.

'WHOP!'

Rose staggered forwards into a night time street once again. "Why do these things keep happening at night?" she thought to herself. There was an explosion in the sky over to her right, which made her flinch and duck.

'Here we go again,' she said, and started running in the direction of the explosion. As she ran down the street, she saw a woman with red hair walking towards her, and she was sure it was the woman she'd seen at the Adipose incident, the woman with the Artron energy, what were the chances of that?

'What happened? What did they find? I'm sorry, did they find someone?' she asked the red head.

'I don't know. A bloke called the Doctor, or something.'

Oh yes! At last, she'd found him. 'Well, where is he?'

'They took him away. He's dead.'

Rose's heart missed a beat, she couldn't breath, and she felt sick. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be, after all this time of being apart, to finally find him and find that he'd been killed.

'I'm sorry, did you know him? I mean, they didn't say his name. Could be any doctor,' the woman said sympathetically.

'I came so far,' Rose said, close to tears. The woman touched her forearm.

'It . . . it could be anyone.'

Rose's training started to kick in after the initial shock, and she took a good look at the woman. This woman was supposed to know the Doctor, how else could she get Artron energy on her if she hadn't travelled in the TARDIS. Something was wrong, very wrong, and if she was going to fix it, she needed information.

'What's your name?' she asked her.

'Donna . . . And you?'

Rose was distracted, she was sure she could see something over the woman's shoulder. 'Oh, I was just . . . passing by. I shouldn't even be here. This is wrong. It's wrong.'

The Donna glanced at her shoulder where Rose kept staring; trying to see what she thought was there.

'This is so wrong.' Donna glanced again.

'Sorry, what was it, Donna what?' She realised that she would need a full name for Torchwood to identify her.

'Why do you keep looking at my back?'

'I'm not,' she said, deliberately looking away, which only emphasised the fact that she was.

'Yes, you are. You keep looking behind me. You're doing it now,' Donna said angrily. 'What is it? What's there? Did someone put something on my back?'

'WHOP!'

The room was filled with a flash of light and Rose ran forwards, tears running down her cheeks, she looked devastated.

'Dad?' She ran forwards towards Pete. He enveloped her in his arms.

'What is it Sweetheart? What's the matter?'

Her breathing was erratic with sobs; she could hardly speak.

'He's . . . dead. The Doctor, he's dead. It's all wrong Dad; it's all gone wrong over there.'

Pete shut down the project for the meantime while the 'dream team' worked on the time anomaly and how to navigate it, and Chrissie correlated the new data. Rose had calmed down and was in Pete's office with Mickey, giving a report. She was a Special Operations agent after all, and she put her emotions to one side while she recalled the events of her mission.

'She was there again, the red head. She said her name was Donna, I didn't get her last name.'

'Good work agent Tyler,' Pete said with a proud smile.

'There was something else Dad. She had something on her back. I couldn't see it when I looked at it, but it was there when you glanced away. I've seen something like it before; the Doctor called it a perception filter.'

A week later, Pete called another meeting in the conference room for a progress report from the team leaders.

'We've found her!' Chrissie announced. 'While the physics guys were working on the time travel, I was surfing their 3G network via the cannon. I checked all the news footage of the alien 'fat' babies and the star shaped ship. I ran everything through the facial recognition software and it found her on a social network.'

Chrissie turned her laptop around on the table to show the face of the mystery woman. 'Ladies and gentlemen may I introduce, Donna Noble. In this timeline she has no Artron energy and works as a secretary for Chowdry Photocopiers.'

'Great work Chrissie,' Pete said. 'Now we can track her on the other side. Malcolm any advances on the time travel control?'

'Yes Director! We called in Professor Hawking and his team, and we can now navigate through time,' he announced.

'OK, so where do we go from here? The world over there is falling apart without the Doctor. Rose believes that something alien has attached itself to this Donna Noble and is altering the timeline.' Pete looked around the table. Rose was looking out the large window, watching a contrail inch its way across the sky. Then half inch, then quarter inch, then eighth, sixteenth and so on, until it stopped. The sky had a golden hue.

She was inside St Paul's church.

'But it's not fair,' she protested, tears filling her eyes.

Pete stroked her cheek. 'I've had all these extra hours. No one else in the world has ever had that. And on top of that, I got to see you. And you're beautiful. How lucky am I, eh? So, come on, do as your dad says. You going to be there for me, love? Thanks for saving me.'

He ran out of the church, down the street and into the path of the oncoming car.

'Rose?' Pete called her name, it was distant, an echo. She was startled back into the room. Suddenly she understood everything; it was one of those moments that the Doctor had all the time.

'Dad, I know what's going on and I know what I've got to do,' she told him.

There were murmurings from the scientists in the room, but Pete leapt to her defence.

'Hands up anyone in the room who's been a time traveller,' he said.

Rose and Mickey raised their hands. 'I reckon that makes them the most experienced people here.' Pete smiled and nodded at Rose. 'What you got for us Sweetheart?'

'OK, there are a number of things we have to achieve. We have to get the Doctor unkilled. To do that we have to get Donna Noble to change the time line.'

Captain McNab, the Special Operations Commander interrupted her. 'Whoa, that's a leap faith, how can you know that?' he asked.

'Donna should be the new travelling companion of the Doctor. She has a perception filtered alien on her back. You don't pick them up in your local supermarket; you get them on an alien planet travelling with a Time Lord.'

McNab raised an eyebrow; he wasn't convinced.

'Why can't we just go back an' do it ourselves?' Mickey asked her.

'Because messin' with history can destroy it, and can cause reality to collapse. Trust me I've tried it. The Doctor told me there are fixed points in time and fluxed points.' Rose grinned at a memory.

'I thought he said fuc . . . Never mind. Fixed points happen to you without your knowledge, like running in front of a car because you are late and you don't look.' Pete shot her a look; he remembered what Mickey had told him about her original father.

'Fluxing points allow you to make a choice; you can stand on the pavement and wait for the car to pass. Whatever this thing is on her back, it's changing Donna's choices and feeding off the resulting Artron energy.'

Rose looked at Chrissie. 'What happens on Christmas day 2008 in this new timeline?'

'Chrissie checked her data. 'The alien passenger ship crashes into London and explodes killing millions, including Donna Noble and her family.'

'We have to get her out of London, she has to live. Can the Psychology Department come up with a way that will entice them away?' She asked. One of the psychologists nodded.

'Finally we have to find out which decision was changed, and get Donna to change it back. I can give her a message for the Doctor before she changes the timeline so that he will come back to Earth. It will be sometime before the alien star appeared, as she had Artron energy then and she doesn't now.'

Dr. Stansfield spoke up. 'When we were studying the navigation of the timeline, we noticed that time and reality seemed to be bending around an individual. It appears Donna Noble is that individual. If we wind up the power and increase the resolution we may be able to see where the distortion originates.'

'Okay people, we have tasks to perform, let's get to it and form a plan. All departments report back to me and I'll convene another meeting when we have all the answers.'


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

Gwen led the way into the basement of the Atmos factory, using a Torchwood scanning device. Jack, Ianto, and Captain Price followed her to a keypad locked door.

'Here, let me,' Ianto said as he stepped forwards with another Torchwood gadget. He placed a device that looked like a calculator over the keypad and pressed a button. A series of numbers flashed on the display, faster than the eye could follow, and after a few seconds the lock clicked.

Jack drew his sidearm, pushed the door open and carefully stepped inside. Ianto followed him in, moving to the side of the room to provide cover.

'After you Captain,' Gwen said, holding her arm out for her to enter. Price was about to say the same, when Gwen pulled back the hammer on her automatic and pointed it at Price. 'I insist.' She took clone Price's sidearm out of her holster.

They stepped into the room, and saw Jack checking on a female body strapped to a frame, she had a futuristic device attached to her head.

'She's still alive,' Jack said. 'They must have needed her memories to feed to the clone through this headset.'

'When did you know?' the clone asked. It had been interfering with a nuclear counterattack, when NATO had declared Defcon One, and feeding information to the orbiting Sontaran ship.

'About you? Oh, right from the start,' Jack said. 'You're wearing a different perfume, stronger, probably to hide the residual odour of the clone vat. Not everyone might have noticed that . . . but there again, I'm not everyone.' He turned his attention to the real Price.

'And it was a woman thing,' Gwen added. 'Subtle changes in your body language, y'know, as though you weren't quite familiar with your own body.'

Jack took the device off Price's head, and the clone collapsed, clutching its chest.

'It's alright, it's alright, I'm here, I'm here. I've got you, I've got you,' Jack said, as Marion Price sat up and clung on to him.

'There was this thing, Jack, this alien, with this head.'

'Sontarans, yes we know. UNIT have launched a counterattack using the Valiant, but now we need to work out why they didn't want us to launch the missiles,' Jack said, as he took off his grey coat and wrapped it around her.

'Why don't we ask this one?' Ianto said, pointing at the clone with his sidearm.

'Don't touch me,' the clone said in disgust, as Marion stooped down to try and hold the clones hand.

'It's not my fault. The Sontarans created you, but you had all my memories.'

'You've got a mother, father, and a . . . sister,' the clone said, as if in wonder.

'Yes, and if you don't help me, they're going to die.'

'You love them.'

'Yes,' Marion said. 'Remember that?'

'And Colonel Mace . . . you love him.'

Captain Price looked at the Torchwood team and blushed. 'Er, I think that's enough of that.'

Jack stepped forward, ever the gentleman, trying to spare her blushes. 'The gas . . . Tell us about the gas.'

'He's the enemy,' the clone said.

'Then tell me,' Marion said, stroking the clones hair off her face. 'It's not just poison, what's it for . . .? Marion, please.'

'Caesofine concentrate. It's one part of Bosteen, two parts Probic five.'

Jack went over to a computer terminal, and hacked the UNIT database. 'Clonefeed . . . It's clonefeed!' he exclaimed.

'What's clonefeed?' Gwen asked.

'Like amniotic fluid for Sontarans. That's why they're not invading. They're converting the atmosphere, changing the planet into a clone world. Earth becomes a great big hatchery. Because the Sontarans are clones, that's how they reproduce. Give them a planet this big, they'll create billions of new soldiers. The gas isn't poison, its food.'

'My heart. It's getting slower,' the clone said.

'There's nothing we can do,' Jack said sadly.

'In your mind, you've got so many plans. There's so much that you want to do,' the clone said, looking into Marion's eyes.

'And I will. Never do tomorrow what you can do today, my father says, because . . .'

'Because you never know how long you've got, Marion Price. All that life . . . Kiss him . . . kiss your secret love, before it's too late.'

The clone exhaled and died. Everyone stood silently, looking at the dead woman. She may have been artificially created, but she had been alive, and now she was dead.

Jack cleared his throat. 'That's why the Sontarans had to stop the missiles. They were holding back. Because caesofine gas is volatile, that's why they had to use you Marion, to stop the nuclear attack. Ground to air engagement could spark off the whole thing.'

'What; like set fire to the atmosphere?' Gwen said.

'Yeah, they need all the gas intact to breed their clone army.' Jack was formulating a plan, but he needed help. He took out his mobile and dialled a number. 'This is Captain Jack Harkness; I need to speak to Colonel Mace urgently.'

'This is an unlisted, secure line, how did you get this number?' the young communications officer asked, suspecting that there had been a breach of security. To be fair, she was right; there had been a breach of their security.

'I'm Torchwood,' Jack said, by way of explanation. 'I did say urgently, this is a matter of national security.'

'Er, yes sir, I'm patching you through now.'

Mace's voice came on the phone. 'Captain, where are you, what can I do for you?'

'We're in the basement of the factory. Look, I need a chopper to take me to the nearest civilian airfield.' Gwen and Ianto looked at each other with puzzled expressions.

'I'll also need an M202 FLASH, equipped with M74 rockets, and fitted with M235 warheads.'

'Jack, what's going on?' Gwen asked in that "do I really want to know" tone of voice.

'Right, thank you Colonel, I'll be out the front in five,' he said, hanging up the call. He looked at Gwen and Ianto, who were waiting for an explanation.

'Well?' Ianto said.

'The M202 FLASH is a flame assault shoulder weapon, it's the modern day flamethrower. It uses four M74 rockets, to launch M235 incendiary warheads. I'm going to commandeer a light aircraft and fly into the densest collection of gas and fire the rockets.' He was now heading for the door to climb the stairs to the surface.

'But that's suicide,' Marion told him.

'Which is why I'm doing it,' Jack replied. Marion just frowned at that reply.

'But won't that make the Sontarans "kick off" when they see all their lovely gas go up in smoke?' Gwen said.

'Yeah, I should imagine so, that's why I'm getting the plasma rifle out of the Range Rover when I come back, so that I can use the teleporter in the basement to get to their ship and cause some mayhem.'

They had reached ground level, and were moving towards the front entrance. Gwen grabbed Jack's arm and swung him around.

'Jack, you can't do this on your own,' she told him. 'You don't know how long it will take to get back here . . . there might be millions of Sontaran troops on the ground by the time you get back.'

'But Gwen, what choice have I got? They're both suicide missions, and I'm the only one here who can do them.'

Ianto took a deep breath, and swallowed hard. He couldn't believe what he was about to say. 'I can fly a light aircraft.'

'And any fool can pull the trigger on a rocket launcher,' Gwen said.

'NO! No, no, no, definitely not,' Jack said, shaking his head and cutting the air in front of them with his arms.

'Think about it Jack, Ianto can put us in to a steep dive after the rockets are launched. There's a chance we will survive it, and you can launch a simultaneous attack on their ship while they're distracted.'

Ianto nodded as Jack looked at them. Gwen was right; damn it, she was right. He reached forwards and held Gwen's face, kissing her on the lips. He then did the same to Ianto, and remembered a time, many lifetimes ago, when he was in the same situation on Satellite Five.

'Be careful,' he said quietly. 'See you in hell.' He put on his gas mask, and walked past them, heading for the Range Rover.

The black, Westland Lynx helicopter landed in front of the Atmos factory, and Ianto ran towards it, with Gwen close behind. They climbed inside, took off their masks, and put on the headsets. As soon as they were strapped in, it took off, and flew over the factory, where Jack looked up, and wondered if he would ever see his friends again.

He grabbed the large, plasma cannon out of the back of the Range Rover, and headed for the mobile headquarters, to give Colonel Mace a run down on their plan.

Ianto sat with the pilot, looking at the satellite data which indicated the concentrations of gas in the atmosphere. With petrol being so scarce, the greatest concentrations tended to be over a metropolis, and the nearest one of those was London.

Gwen sat in the rear of the helicopter with a weapons specialist, who was giving her a quick lesson on how to fire the rockets without killing either herself or Ianto.

'You're going to fire it where?' he asked in disbelief.

'From a light aircraft, why, is that a problem?' she asked.

'Oh, no, not at all, if you don't mind the rocket exhaust setting fire to the aircraft,' he said sarcastically.

Gwen smiled at him sweetly. 'I'll have to make sure I've got a big fire extinguisher then, won't I.'

'We're coming up on the airfield, wheels down in two minutes,' the pilot announced.

After landing, the UNIT weapons officer led them to the small office on the airfield, and handed the manager a requisition order from the Ministry of Defence.

'We need to commandeer a light aircraft on a matter of national security, you may have noticed the gas that is choking everyone,' he said.

The manager examined the paperwork with a worried expression.

'If the aircraft is damaged or lost, you can claim compensation from the Ministry by completing the claims slip at the bottom of the form.'

'What do you mean, lost?' the man asked, wondering how you could forget where you landed a light aircraft.

'You really don't want to know,' Ianto said. The haunted look on his face, telling the manager that they didn't mean that kind of lost.

'Ah, right . . . There's a Cessna 162 Skycatcher available at the moment. It's a bit beaten up, but it's solid and reliable.'

'Does it have the swing up door design?' the helicopter pilot asked.

'Yeah, it does.'

'That will be ideal for your needs,' the weapons officer told Gwen.

'Right, let's do this before I change my mind,' Ianto said nervously.

They loaded the Cessna with the rocket launcher, and a borrowed foam extinguisher, before strapping in and moving onto the runway. It was late evening now, and it was getting dark as Ianto taxied down the runway.

'I don't actually have a night rating,' Ianto confessed, as the engine idled. 'I only have a NPPL for recreational flying.'

Gwen actually laughed, despite the fact that she would probably die in this attempt. 'Can you take off?'

'Yes, of course,' he replied.

'And can you follow a compass heading to London?'

'Yes.'

'And can you land this thing?'

He smiled at her. 'Yes, I can.'

'Well that's good enough for me, just fly the bloody plane and the CAA can go and sod off.'

He opened up the throttle and the Cessna accelerated down the runway. Ianto pulled back on the yoke, and they climbed steadily into the night sky towards London.

'I can't see a damn thing through this gas,' Ianto complained, relying on his instruments to get them to their destination.

Gwen had taken her laptop out of her holdall and was checking the satellite data. 'Well, according to this, we're right in the thick of it . . . I guess its time.'

She reached behind Ianto's seat, and pulled the M202 FLASH onto her lap, where she started to prepare it to fire. Ianto throttled back the engines and extended the flaps to lower their stall speed. Gwen twisted the handle and lifted the door, and felt the wind whistle by. She looked down and saw a muddy brown glow of the sodium street lights through the gas.

She perched the rectangular rocket launcher on her left shoulder, pointing the 'business end' out of the open door, with the exhaust end pointing into the back of the cabin.

'YOU READY?' she shouted through the gas mask, over the howl of the wind.

Ianto turned to look at her and nodded, before turning back to the flight instruments.

'WHOOSH', 'WHOOSH', 'WHOOSH', 'WHOOSH'. The four rockets disappeared into the night, and Ianto pushed the yoke hard forward. Gwen's stomach churned, as she went into free fall. The cabin was filling with thick black smoke, and she reached behind the seat to get the foam extinguisher. She pulled the pin and squeezed the handle, spraying foam into the back of the cockpit. A deep, orangey brown glow filled the aircraft, not from the fire inside, which was now out, but from the sky, that had become a churning inferno.

Gwen's last words were quite typical for her. 'Ohhhh Goddd . . . Rhys, Love, I'm so sorry.'

Ianto, on the other hand, was an ordinary lad from Cardiff, although having been to university, he was quite well read. If he had known that they would be his last words, he may have quoted Dickens, 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known', or maybe Churchill, 'Never was so much owed by so many to so few'.

As it was, all he managed was 'Yeeeeee-Haaaaah,' as the plane plummeted, and then was tossed about in the turbulence of the convection currents of the fire, like a leaf on a breeze.

* * *

Jack Harkness stood at the entrance to the short, tunnel like teleporter in the basement of the Atmos factory. He pulled back the slider on the plasma cannon, and primed it for firing. He stepped into the tunnel and pressed the button on the control panel. There was a flash of white light, and he was facing several, troll like Sontarans, who were looking at their precious clonefeed gas, burning in the Earth's atmosphere.

He pulled the trigger on the cannon as he stepped out of the teleporter, and blew a control desk to pieces. He pulled back the slider and fired at another panel, and another, and another. The whole of the control room was in chaos and ruins, as the deck lurched under his feet. With all the control interfaces destroyed, the engines and power generator would spiral out of control, and the ship would blow up.

General Staal, of the Tenth Sontaran Fleet, Staal the Undefeated, drew a pistol from the holster on his belt, and shot Jack in the chest. Jack flew backwards and landed on the deck, his cannon clattered across the deck. Staal walked over to where Jack lay, and looked down at him, nodding in appreciation.

'At last, a human fit to be called a warrior, I salute you sir.'

'General,' Lieutenant Skree called out. 'The power grid is becoming unstable; we do not have much time.'

'Then it will be a glorious death,' Staal said.

Jack took a sharp, gasping breath.

'What manner of warrior are you that cannot die?' the general asked him.

'Wouldn't you like to know,' Jack said, propping himself up on his elbows.

'You're right, I would. Imagine all our warriors able to experience a glorious death, time after time . . . Magnificent!' He turned to Skree. 'Lieutenant, I charge you with taking the prisoner to Sontar on a transport, where our scientist can study him and replicate the ability.'

'But General, what about my honourable death?'

'There will be other opportunities for you to die, and imagine Skree, being the warrior that allowed all future warriors to experience that final honour again and again.'

'Hmm, I see your point General . . . it would be an honour to escort the prisoner home.'


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

'WHOP!'

"Oh typical", Rose thought to herself, night time again, but it wasn't London this time, it was Leeds. She heard footsteps coming down the street from around the corner, and waited. Sure enough, Donna Noble came around the corner.

'Hello,' Donna said quietly. There was no animosity this time; this woman had saved their lives at Christmas. Not that they had much of a life now, it was more of an existence, living from day to day until the next disaster stuck, which appeared to be suffocation by Atmos devices.

'Hi,' Rose said; an air of sadness in her voice. 'Shall we go somewhere quiet where we can talk?'

They walked down the street together in silence, as Donna took them through an alley between two terraced blocks of houses and headed up a hill, into a small park, where they sat on a bench under some trees.

'It's the ATMOS devices,' Rose started to explain, talking as though she was an inhabitant of this hellish world.

'We're lucky, it's not so bad here, Britain hasn't got that much petrol. But all over Europe, China, South Africa, they're getting choked by gas.'

'Can't anyone stop it?'

'Yeah, they're trying right now, this little band of fighters, on board the Sontaran ship . . . Any second now.'

As they watched, the sky caught fire with a roar, spreading out to the horizon in all directions; Donna's mouth fell open in horror.

'And that was?'

'That was the Torchwood team . . . Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, they gave their lives . . . And Captain Jack Harkness has transported to the Sontaran home world, there's no one left,' she said with resignation.

'You're always wearing the same clothes, why won't you tell me your name?'

Rose wanted to tell her, but knew that she couldn't. 'None of this was meant to happen,' she said by way of an explanation. 'There was a man . . . this . . . wonderful man, and he stopped it. The Titanic, the Adipose, the ATMOS, he stopped them all from happening.'

'That Doctor?' Donna realised.

'You knew him.'

'Did I?' she asked eagerly. 'When?'

'I think you dream about him sometimes. It's a man in a suit. Tall, thin man. Grrreat hair . . . Some . . . really great hair,' Rose remembered with a desire and a need to see that impossibly sticky up hair again.

'Who-are-you?' Donna asked again.

'I was like you . . . I used to be you. You've travelled with him, Donna. You've travelled with the Doctor in a different world.'

'I never met him, and he's dead,' she said with an air of finality.

'He died underneath the Thames on Christmas Eve, but you were meant to be there. He needed someone to stop him, and that was you. You made him leave. You saved his life.'

Donna stared past Rose, off into the distance, remembering fire and water, and the silhouette of a man with sticky up hair.

['Doctor, you can stop now',] she had shouted. That memory unsettled her and she stood up, walking quickly away from this strange, nameless woman. 'Stop it. I don't know what you're talking about. Leave me alone!'

'Something's coming, Donna,' Rose said with emotion. 'Something worse.'

'The whole world is stinking . . . How can anything be worse than this?'

'Trust me; we need the Doctor more than ever. I've . . .' She hesitated, did she tell her truth? What choice did she have? They needed Donna to make the right choice.

'I've been pulled across from a different universe because every single universe is in danger. Its coming, Donna, it's coming from across the stars and nothing can stop it.'

'What is?' Donna asked angrily.

'The darkness.'

That sounded ominous, but what had it got to do with her? 'Well, what do you keep telling me for? What am I supposed to do? I'm nothing special. I mean, I'm . . . I'm not. I'm nothing special. I'm a temp. I'm not even that. I'm nothing.'

'Donna Noble, you're the most important woman in the whole of creation,' Rose said with a conviction that made her laugh.

'Oh, don't . . . Just don't.' That was too much. 'I'm tired . . . I'm so . . . tired.'

'I need you to come with me,' Rose said urgently as Donna started to walk away.

Donna turned around and gave her attitude. 'Yeah . . . Well . . . blonde hair might work on the men, but you ain't shifting me, lady.'

Rose smiled. 'That's more like it.'

'I've got plenty more,' she nodded.

Rose relaxed, she'd done it, and Donna had got her attitude back. 'Then you'll come with me . . . only when you want to.'

'You'll have a long wait, then,' she said, walking away.

'Not really, just three weeks.' The certainty in her voice made Donna stop and turn around. 'Tell me, does your grandfather still own that telescope?'

'He never lets go of it.'

'Three weeks time, but you've got to be certain . . . because when you come with me, Donna, sorry . . . so sorry, but . . . you're gonna die.'

'WHOP!'

Rose staggered into the lever room, afternoon sunlight shining through the windows of her father's glass fronted office opposite.

'How'd it go Sweetheart?' Pete asked her, as she handed the Dimension Disk to a technician.

'Good,' she said distractedly, and then looked into her fathers eyes. 'Well, not good for her. I told her the facts, and got her attitude back,' she said with a smile, which faded quickly. 'And, I told her that she would die . . . I've given her the choice; it's all up to her now.'

* * *

Kate Stewart, the Head of Scientific Research at UNIT, was in the Operations Room of UNIT headquarters, under the remains of the Tower of London, when her mobile phone rang. She took it out of her jacket pocket, and looked at the display, which said 'TORCHWOOD'. There had to be a mistake, Torchwood no longer existed, Torchwood One had been devastated by the Dalek, Cybermen battle in 2007, and Jack Harkness's team had recently perished in the Atmos incident.

'Osgood, put a trace on this call,' she called to her personal assistant, before answering the call. 'Hello?'

'Kate Stewart? I need your help,' a young woman said.

'How did you get my number, its unlisted and confidential, it doesn't exist.'

'We have a mutual acquaintance,' the caller said, and then corrected herself. 'Had a mutual acquaintance.'

'Oh, and who's that then?'

'A man from Gallifrey.'

'Ma'am, I've triangulated a lock on the caller,' Osgood told her.

['Where is she?'] She mouthed to her.

'Oh, and by the way, I'm in the courtyard above you,' the caller said.

Kate walked towards the young, blonde woman, accompanied by two soldiers carrying rifles. When she saw her, she didn't believe it was Rose Tyler, she'd died in 2007, at the battle of Canary Wharf.

She held out her hand. 'Kate Stewart,' she said in greeting. 'And you look like Rose Tyler, but you can't be, because you are on the list of the dead from Canary Wharf.'

Rose shook the offered hand. 'I need you to believe me, and I need you to trust me if you want to put all this right,' she said, waving her arms at the scaffolding around the damaged Tower, and getting straight to the point.

'I'm listening, but firstly, how do I know you are actually Rose Tyler? Which Doctor did you travel with?' she asked as a test.

Rose smiled, she liked this woman; she was smart. 'There is only one Doctor . . . he may change his appearance, and his demeanour, but it's the same person.'

'Yes, sorry, I mean what did he look like when you travelled with him.'

'I first met him when he had short black hair, big ears, and a big daft smile,' she said with a wistful smile. 'He blew up the shop that I worked in . . . remember the Autons? That was us, as was the Slitheen at Downing Street; he blew that up as well.'

Kate laughed. 'Yes, I remember that, he certainly liked blowing things up.'

'And then he changed one Christmas; that was the Sycorax invasion. He was taller, thinner, with a cute smile, and sticky up hair . . . great, sticky up hair. At the battle of Canary Wharf, I helped him open the breach, and suck all the Daleks and Cybermen into the Void, the dead space between universes. Unfortunately, I got stuck on the other side of the breach in a parallel universe.'

Kate looked at the woman in front of her and saw the look in her eyes; this young woman had been in love with the Doctor.

'That's why you were listed as missing, presumed dead. And now you've come back?'

'Yes, because the breach is opening again, and from the other universe, I could see this one, and the Doctor was alive. But something happened, a woman he was meant to travel with, changed her mind, and reality changed with her. None of this was supposed to happen, the Adipose, the Titanic, the Sontarans.'

Kate was convinced that this was Rose Tyler, she knew too much about the Doctor. 'Can you change it back?'

'Yes, but I'll need UNIT's help. Can you take me to the TARDIS?'

'What makes you think we have the TARDIS?' she asked suspiciously.

'Kate, I could have gone to the Black Archive without you, but I need a team to help me . . . also, you haven't been able to get inside, have you?'

Kate was shocked, how did Rose know about the Black Archive? She couldn't possibly remember having been there. When she had recovered from the initial shock, she shook her head. 'No, it defies all attempts at entry.'

Rose reached inside her plum coloured top, and pulled out a chain with a key on it. 'Would you like to see inside? 'Cos I've got a key.'

'You'd better come with me,' Kate said.

Kate took Rose into the ruined Tower of London, which was still in the process of being rebuilt after the Titanic spaceship had crashed onto Buckingham Palace last Christmas. She took her down into the bomb proof sub basement of UNIT. They made their way along a dimly lit corridor, to a door, where a man sat at a desk.

'Ma'am,' the man said, standing up to greet them.

Kate handed him her key. 'Atkins, isn't it, how's your first day on the job?'

'Oh, very good ma'am, quiet, but it gives me chance to read all the policies and procedures.'

'Very good Atkins, carry on.'

He opened the door, and they walked inside the most secret room on the planet. On one wall, was a board, covered with photographs of people who had visited the gallery in the past.

'Oh look, Sarah Jane, she's been here,' Rose said. 'Hang on, that's me . . . in here, with you. When was that taken?'

'Let me see,' she said as she took the photo down and looked at the back. 'Er, April 2007 . . . I think you said you were staying over with your mother, while the Doctor infiltrated a school.'

'Oh my God, that was Deffry Vale High School, and the Krillitane.'

'Yes, that was it; the corridor erases your memory when you leave this place. Atkins has been having his first day at work for ten years now. By the way, I hope you don't mind me asking, but . . . your mother was on the list of the missing presumed dead,' Kate said with concern.

'She's with me, and Mickey Smith, we're in the parallel universe.'

'Oh, that's a relief,' she said as she pinned the photograph back on the board. 'Come on, this way.'

Rose followed her to a dark room, where she flicked a switch and a spotlight illuminated the doors of a blue wooden box. Rose's hand covered her mouth as she gasped at the sight of the TARDIS.

'Oh girl . . . what's happened to you?' She had tears in her eyes as she walked forwards and hesitantly reached out to touch the wooden exterior. A dim light glowed behind the windows, and the lamp on top also tried to illuminate.

'That's the first sign that the TARDIS is still working since we brought it here,' Kate told her.

Rose could feel the TARDIS's sadness and grief. 'We're mourning the loss of our Time Lord.'

She put the key in the lock and turned it, pushing the door open and stepping into the dim interior. Kate followed her inside and walked up the ramp behind her.

Rose gently stroked the console. 'Hello old girl, how have you been?' The roundels glowed in greeting, and she leaned across to stroke the time rotor. There was a stuttering wheeze, as it tried to pump up and down.

Kate stood by her side. 'Rose, you said you could change this, what did you mean?'

'The woman who was supposed to save him, her name is Donna Noble, and she has a perception filtered alien creature on her back, which is making her change her choices. We think it's feeding on the infinite potential energy that gets left behind.'

'And what do you need from UNIT?'

Rose reached inside her jacket, and took out an A4 plastic wallet of papers. 'These are blueprints for a time machine, drawn up by Malcolm Taylor and the Torchwood team. It will be powered by the TARDIS, and we need your Malcolm to build it.'

Kate glanced over the papers in the folder. 'Right, I think I'll get Captain Magambo to oversee the movement of the TARDIS to . . .'

'A secure warehouse in Canning Town,' Rose finished for her, as she started down the ramp to the doors. 'It will take Malcolm three weeks to complete the work, and then Donna Noble will accompany me to change her time line.'

Kate looked stunned; this remarkable woman really was the Doctor's companion.

Rose closed the door, and stroked the wood. 'Like I said, from the other universe, we can see your future . . . up to a point.'

'And what point is that?' Kate asked.

'Be careful when you move her,' Rose said, ignoring Kate's question. 'She's fragile now that she's lost the Doctor. Oh, and Malcolm will need this.' She took the key from around her neck and held the chain out in front of her; gently dropping it into Kate's cupped hands.

Kate looked at the ordinary Yale key, as though it was the most precious jewel on Earth. She was going to say thank you to Rose, but when she looked up, Kate was alone.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

Donna screamed, as key events in her altered timeline rewound. She could hear the word 'left', echoing in her memory. A parasitic alien beetle dropped from her back, as the Asian fortune teller cowered in the corner of the hut in fear.

'What the hell is that?' Donna said in disgust.

'You were so strong . . . What are you? What will you be?' she said, scrabbling to her feet, and fleeing out the back of the hut. 'What will you be?' she repeated from outside as she ran away.

'Everything all right?' the Doctor said cheerfully, popping his head between the curtains.

'Oh, God,' she said in distress, rushing forward and hugging him.

'What was that for?' the Doctor said, bemused by her reaction.

'I don't know,' she laughed, and hugged him again. 'I'm just SO glad that you're here, and not dead.'

'Eh?'

'I was having my palm read, and it was like I was daydreaming, but it was real. I never met you and you were killed in that incident under the Thames, and the world went to hell in a hand basket,' she said quickly, trying to tell him before it went and was forgotten.

'Oh hello, and what's this thing then?' he said, looking at the dead beetle on it's back.

'I . . . I turned left. I was in the car with Mum, and I turned left, and then everything seemed to go in reverse, and that thing fell off my back.'

The Doctor picked it up off the floor, and placed it on a cloth covered box. He guided his trembling companion to a chair and sat her down, before sitting himself and flipping over the beetle to examine it. He prodded it with a small stick, and leg twitched in a reflex action, it was definitely dead.

'So what happened in this vision of hell that you had?'

'I can't remember . . . it's slipping away . . . You know like when you try and think of a dream and it just sort of goes.'

'Just got lucky, this thing, it's one of the Trickster's Brigade . . . Changes a life in tiny little ways,' he told her. It was a creature of the abstract, a smaller, less powerful version of a weeping angel. 'Most times, the universe just compensates around it, but with you? Great big parallel world.'

Donna smiled, and then thought about what he'd said. 'Hold on. You said parallel worlds are sealed off.'

'They are, but you had one created around you. Funny thing is, seems to be happening a lot . . . to you.' There was something he couldn't put his finger on, something about Donna.

'How do you mean?'

'Well, the Library and then this.'

'Just . . . goes with the job, I suppose.'

'Sometimes I think there's way too much coincidence around you, Donna.' He was trying to gather his thoughts; it was as though she was the opposite of Jack Harkness, where he appeared "wrong", Donna Noble appeared impossibly "right".

'I met you once, then I met your grandfather, then I met you again . . . In the whole wide universe, I met you for a second time . . . It's like something's binding us together.'

'Don't be so daft. I'm nothing special.'

'Yes, you are. You're brilliant,' he said in a playful voice that made her smile.

['He thought you were brilliant.'] She saw the blonde woman, in the TARDIS, telling her just that.

'She said that.'

'Who did?'

'That woman . . . I can't remember,' she said, shaking her head.

'Well, she never existed now.' That time line had been changed, corrected, eliminated.

'No, but she said the stars . . . She said the stars are going out.'

'Yeah, but that world's gone.' Donna didn't understand about temporal flux, and how some time lines changed, changing the perception of reality.

'No, but she said it was all worlds, every world . . . She said the darkness is coming . . . even here.'

"Hang on", he thought, how did Donna know about all the possible parallel worlds?

['Doctor, she is returning.'] The words of Lucius echoed in his mind.

'Who was she?'

'I don't know.'

'What did she look like?' he asked, hoping beyond hope for the right answer.

'She was . . .' Donna saw a fleeting glimps of her in her memory. 'Blonde.'

['She is returning.']

'What was her name?' he asked urgently.

'I don't know.'

'Donna, what was her name?' Now he was desperate.

Donna then remembered the end of her vision; the blonde woman leaned over her as she lay dying in the road. 'But she told me to warn you. She said two words.'

['She is returning.']

'What two words? What were they? What did she say?' The questions poured from his lips, desperate to hear the message.

'Bad Wolf . . .'

['She is returning.']

Bad Wolf . . .? BAD WOLF . . .? What the hell? He certainly wasn't expecting that. But still, there was only one blonde that would send a warning like that. "Oh Rose, It's you!" he thought in stunned silence.

'Well, what does it mean?'

That was a very good question, he thought as he ran outside. Every printed thing now said Bad Wolf, the posters on the walls, the flags, the banners. Even the TARDIS said Bad Wolf instead of Police Box. He ran inside, to see the time rotor glowing with an ominous red light.

'DONG!' The cloister bell tolled.

'Doctor, what is it . . .? What's Bad Wolf?'

'It's the end of the universe.'

'What?'

'We've got to get back to Earth,' he told her as he started the time rotor. He ran around the console like a man possessed, impatient to land and see what fate was about to befall the universe. He ran outside . . . onto a grass verge of a quiet, suburban street.

'It's fine . . . Everything's fine . . . Nothing's wrong, all fine,' he said as they turned in circles, looking around at the normal street.

They watched a milk float trundle up the street and stop outside a house. 'Excuse me . . . what day is it?' the Doctor called to the Milkman.

'Saturday,' the Milkman called back, thinking he must have had a good Friday night out if he couldn't remember it was Saturday.

'Saturday . . . Good,' he called back. 'Good, I like Saturdays,' he said quietly to himself.

'So, I just met Rose Tyler?' Donna asked him.

'Yeah,' he replied distractedly.

She could see now why he fell in love with her, and why it took him so long to come to terms with losing her, she was awesome. 'But she's locked away in a parallel world.'

'Exactly. If she can cross from her parallel world to your parallel world, then that means the walls of the universe are breaking down, which puts everything in danger. Everything . . . But how?'

He went back into the TARDIS to check on the status of the universe, and Donna followed him. He started adjusting the controls, and looked at the display monitor.

'The thing is, Doctor . . . no matter what's happening, and I'm sure it's bad, I get that,' she started, trying to judge his current mood. 'But, Rose is coming back . . . Isn't that good?'

He looked up from the console, his brow furrowed with worry about the Bad Wolf warning, but he thought about his love returning, and he smiled; a smile that Donna had not seen before, a smile that reached his eyes, and came from his soul. 'Yeah.'

Nah, the universe contested, as the TARDIS lurched with a crunching sound, sending them sprawling across the console. It was odd, because they weren't even in flight, they were still parked on the grass verge on the quiet, suburban street, or so he thought.

'What the hell was that?' Donna shouted.

'Don't know. It came from outside.' He ran down the ramp to see what had happened, and he pulled the doors open. The grass verge on the quiet, suburban street had gone, so had the Milkman and his float, along with the houses, the neighbourhood, and the rest of the planet.

'But we're in space,' Donna observed as he ran back to the console. 'How did that happen.. what did you do?'

'We haven't moved, we're fixed,' he said, frowning at the monitor. 'It can't have . . . No.' He ran back to join Donna at the Doors. 'The TARDIS is still in the same place, but the Earth has gone . . . the entire planet . . . it's gone.'

* * *

The Doctor had followed the Tandocca Trail into the Medusa Cascade, hoping to find Earth, only it wasn't there, there was nothing, just the clouds of nebulous gas and dust. Now what? They were leaning against the coral struts around the console, trying to think of how they could find the Earth, he was sure the trail would lead them to the stolen planet.

And then Martha's phone had rung, and he had been able to follow the signal, that was just one second out of sync with the rest of the universe, and there it was, planet Earth. Only it wasn't alone, there were twenty six other planets and the Daleks, and they were up to something, something bad.

He landed the TARDIS in London, and they stepped out on to the ruins of a suburban street at night. Well, actually, it was night all over the planet, because there was no sun. Abandoned cars littered the deserted street.

'It's like a ghost town,' Donna noted.

'Sarah Jane said they were taking the people. What for? Think, Donna, when you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say?'

'Just . . . the darkness is coming.'

What did that mean? He thought to himself. 'Anything else?'

Donna shook her head and was about to say no, when she looked past his shoulder. Oh at last, after all this time, thank God. He was about to get his miracle. 'Why don't you ask her yourself?'

He frowned at her, and saw that she was looking behind him. He looked over his shoulder, and at the end of the street he saw a lone figure standing there, a young woman, a blonde woman. Could it be? He didn't want to believe it, because he didn't want to be wrong and be disappointed. But then she smiled, and his heart soared, oh how he'd missed that smile.

Donna was grinning like a Cheshire cat, as Rose Tyler started to run towards him, and then, the Doctor started running towards her, faster and faster, impatient to be reunited with his love. As usual though, things didn't go as he would have liked. He was the Doctor, and the universe expected payment for performing miracles.

Rose saw it first from her viewpoint and skidded to a halt, as a Dalek came from a side street to her right.

'Exterminate,' it declared in a screechy voice, and fired a bolt of energy at the Doctor. He didn't see it until the last moment, and tried to dodge out of the way. He managed to avoid the full force of the energy discharge, but it still glanced across his chest, lighting him up and sending him spinning to the ground.

Donna and Rose gasped in disbelief as he fell, surely it couldn't end like this. There was a flash of bright light, and Jack Harkness appeared with a large plasma cannon, which he quickly used to dispatch the Dalek.

Rose shrugged off her plasma rifle and put it on the floor as she knelt down to cradle his head in her hand. 'I've got you. It missed you. Look, it's me, Doctor.'

'Rose,' he breathed with a smile.

'Hi,' she said, trying to hide her fear and concern.

'Long time no see,' he gasped, it was difficult to breath.

'Yeah.' She nearly lost it and sobbed, but managed to turn it into a smile. 'Been busy, you know?'

He groaned in pain, and she grabbed his head with both hands. 'Don't die . . . Oh, my God, don't die. Oh my God, don't die.' She was now on the edge of breaking down.

Jack and Donna reached them, and Jack took control. 'Get him into the TARDIS, quick. Move.' Rose and Donna supported him under each armpit, as Jack picked up Rose's rifle and covered their backs while they made their way to the TARDIS.

They stumbled and dragged their way up the ramp, and lowered him onto the floor grating by the console. Rose had tears in her eyes, as she looked at her dying love.

'What, what do we do?' Donna asked urgently. 'There must be some medicine or something.'

Jack put the weapons on the jump seat. 'Just step back . . . Rose, do as I say, and get back. He's dying and you know what happens next.'

'What do you mean? He can't,' Donna said.

'Oh, no. I came all this way,' Rose sobbed. All those years of hoping, all those years of trying . . . it can't end like this, it's not fair.

'What do you mean, what happens next?' Donna asked, starting to cry herself. This was her best friend, and he was dying.

He held up his right hand and looked at it; Rose saw the golden glow that she had seen once before, when he had big ears, a northern attitude, and a daft grin.

'It's starting,' the Doctor said, resigned to what must come next.

'Here we go, Jack said, grabbing Rose and pulling her to a coral strut with Donna. 'Good luck, Doctor.'

'Will someone please tell me what is going on?' Donna asked, as the Doctor pulled himself to his feet using the console.

'When he's dying, his er, his body, it repairs itself. It changes,' Rose explained. 'But you can't!' she cried.

'I'm sorry, it's too late.' He started to pant, as though he was going to throw up. 'I'm regenerating.' He turned away from them and threw his head back, and his arms out. Bright, golden light shone from his body which hurt their eyes as they tried to watch.

Golden energy streamed from his hands and head, and he, Jack, Rose, and Donna believed he was regenerating. With an effort, he turned and pointed both hands towards his spare hand in the jar under the console. The energy flowed into the jar, causing the fluid to bubble as it absorbed the Artron energy.

The Doctor staggered backwards, panting breathlessly, as the energy discharge ceased. His three friends looked on with mouths open, and stunned expressions on their tear stained faces.

'Now then,' he said with a sniff. 'Where were we?' He went over to the console and crouched down to check on his glowing spare hand.

'There now,' he said, blowing the glowing mist away.

He looked up at his stunned friends. 'You see? Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but soon as I was done, I didn't need to change. I didn't want to. Why would I? Look at me,' he said, straightening his tie. 'So, to stop the energy going all the way, I siphoned off the rest into a handy bio-matching receptacle, namely my hand . . . my hand there. My handy spare hand.'

He looked at Rose. 'Remember? Christmas Day, Sycorax. Lost my hand in a sword fight? That's my hand . . . What do you think?'

Rose walked uncertainly towards him. 'You're still . . . you?'

'I'm still me,' he said with a smile.

Her heart soared with joy, and she hugged him so hard. It had worked, all the planning and effort to find him and reach him, and now she had him, here in her arms. She so wanted to kiss him, but with Jack and Donna there, she knew he would be reluctant to show his real feelings.

Jack and Donna didn't mind though, you could feel the love in the room, even the TARDIS was resonating a feeling of love through the ship.

'You can hug me, if you want,' Donna said and Jack just laughed. 'No, really . . . you can hug me.' She wouldn't mind a hug from this gorgeous hunk. "You watch, it'd just be my luck that he's gay", she thought to herself as she pulled him into a hug.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

Donna Noble, still felt like Donna Noble, the hundred words a minute temp from Chiswick, but she also felt so much more. She was Super-Donna, Doctor-Donna, she had the intellect and memories of a Time Lord in her head, and it felt brilliant, she was brilliant. She knew everything, she understood everything, she couldn't wait to get down the pub on quiz night; they wouldn't know what had hit them.

But most of all, she knew the Doctor, and understood the Doctor, and for a human, it was heartbreaking. He was all fire and ice and rage, but he was also running water in a stream, dappled sunlight through the trees, and the reflection on a still lake at midnight.

He was like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, ancient and forever, but also sunrise over the ocean, the calm in the eye of the storm, young and vibrant. He burned at the centre of time, seeing the turn of the universe, and yet his gentle flame is a beacon of hope, and he doesn't just see the turn of the universe, the universe turns around him.

He was a man of contrasts, awesome and terrifying, joyous and sad, he had so many friends, and he was lonely.

'Now then, you lot,' the Doctor said in 'manic mode'.

'Sarah, hold that down.' He indicated a lever for her to hold, and moved to Mickey, who was standing to her left. 'Mickey, you hold that.'

'Because you know why this TARDIS is always rattling about the place?' he said as he continued his way around the console. 'Rose? That, there,' he said, leaning in close and enjoying the scent of Rose. Rose smiled, and looked at his twin standing next to her, trying to get her head around the fact that there was now two of him.

'It's designed to have six pilots, and I have to do it single handed.'

He moved to the next segment. 'Martha, keep that level. But not any more.'

The next segment was occupied by Jack. 'Jack, there you go, steady that. Now we can fly this thing.'

He came back to where he'd started, and saw Jackie. 'No, Jackie, no . . . no. Not you. Don't touch anything. Just stand back,' he said quietly.

'Like it's meant to be flown. We've got the Torchwood Rift looped around the TARDIS by Mister Smith, and we're going to fly Planet Earth back home. Right then, off we go.'

They felt the TARDIS shudder slightly as it took the strain of the mass of the Earth, the pitch of the time rotor changed as it initially laboured to start the planet moving. The 'old girl' was enjoying having all this company; all her old friends back again, just as much as they were. She started singing the Ood song of freedom, which permeated through everyone's consciousness, and gave them a feeling of euphoria.

'How's this working then Doc?' Jack asked the man in the brown pin striped suit across the console. Three people tried to answer at once, and looked at each other in surprise. There were nine people on the TARDIS, and three of them had the same memories and the same intellect.

The original Doctor raised his eyebrows in a challenge to the Metacrisis Doctor, and Doctor-Donna, just let them try and answer for him. 'The Cardiff rift down there on the planet is feeding energy to the TARDIS, so that it can generate a powerful gravity well which the Earth can fall into . . .'

'With the extra energy,' Doctor-Donna cut in. 'The TARDIS can drag the Earth into the Time Vortex.'

'Moving it thousands of light years in less than an hour,' the Metacrisis Doctor finished.

Rose was standing between the two Doctors, and looked at the cheeky smile of the Metacrisis Doctor, and then the miffed face of the original Doctor, before bursting out laughing. She was in her element, after waiting nearly four years to see her foxy man again, she now had two to look at.

The Metacrisis Doctor moved around the console and leaned against a coral with his arms crossed, watching Rose flirt with himself. Well, with the Doctor, who was him, it was a bit wibbly-wobbly.

Donna moved around the console, and smiled at Jack. 'That's really good, Jack. I think you're the best.'

Jack grinned at her as Jackie laughed. Someone flirting with Jack; that made a refreshing change. Donna went and stood next to the Metacrisis Doctor, and they grinned at each other, like the brother and sister they were.

The TARDIS shuddered as the rift energy was released, and the Earth returned to its proper orbit around the sun. Everyone on board started to cheer, applaud, and then hug, it had been a remarkable journey, and they were all members of a special family now, the TARDIS family.

'Right then, who's up for a cuppa then,' Jackie said to the jubilant team. 'I might not be able to fly the TARDIS, but I can use a kettle.'

There was a chorus of yes pleases from everyone and after taking orders for tea and coffee, Jackie took Rose's elbow as she walked past. 'You gonna show me where the kitchen is Love?'

Rose was keen to stay and talk to the Doctor, but there again; there would be plenty of time for that later. 'Er, okay . . . it's through here.'

As Jackie led Rose away from the Doctor, he walked over to the coral strut which Doctor-Donna and the Metacrisis Doctor were leaning against.

'So, what do we do with you then?' the Doctor said, looking at his Metacrisis twin.

'Don't look at me like that, like I'm something you just trod in,' he said angrily. 'I know I'm the unexpected by-product of Doctor-Donna here.'

'I don't think that,' Donna said, putting a comforting hand on his arm. 'You're the same as me, just in reverse . . . you're like my brother.'

'And we both know mister lord high and mighty there; he thinks I'm the afterbirth. But tell me this brother, where would you and your happy band be if it wasn't for me?'

They both knew the answer to that one, because at the time, Donna couldn't have flown the TARDIS out of the Z-neutrino furnace, she wouldn't have been there to free them from the holding cells, and she wouldn't have disabled the Daleks.

'But you destroyed them all, there was no need for that, we of all people know that,' the Doctor said.

'Do we though? What were you going to do, broker a peace deal, give them another chance? The only chance they would have taken was the chance to try and destroy us again.'

The Doctor was remembering the end of days on Gallifrey, the Metacrisis reminded him of who he used to be before he met the woman who made him better, and then he felt the time lines wriggle and twist into a new alignment, one that he knew he wouldn't like, but one that was the best for everyone else.

His two companions didn't have his ability to see the infinite possibilities ahead of them, but they could feel the subtle change of a point in flux becoming fixed.

'What was that?' Donna asked, still unfamiliar with all these new Time Lord abilities that she had.

'That, sister, was a time line in flux becoming fixed,' the Metacrisis Doctor told her. 'Whose was it?' he asked the Doctor. It had to be someone close to them for Donna and him to be able to feel it.

The Doctor took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, as though steeling himself for what he was about to say. 'Rose,' he said quietly, his voice breaking. 'It's Rose . . . and I need your help.'

* * *

Rose led Jackie down the corridor and into the kitchen / dining room, where they filled the kettle, and grabbed the mugs out of the cupboard, putting them on to two trays. Rose found the Doctor's favourite San Kaloon Pyramid mug that she had bought for him years ago. She smiled at her 2012 Olympic Games mug that he had bought for her just before the Canary Wharf incident.

While they put tea bags in mugs, spooned coffee and sugar, and waited for the kettle to boil, Jackie was giving Rose her 'look', the one that gave her the chance to confess to a wrongdoing, before she would read her the riot act.

Rose was also giving her mum her 'look', the one she used when she was innocent of any wrongdoing, but knew her mother had an axe to grind, and was waiting for said axe to fall. Non verbal communication wasn't working, so Rose knew she had to revert to normal, vocal forms of communication.

'What?' she asked, avoiding her mother's eyes, and finding the tea bags in the cups suddenly fascinating.

Jackie rolled her eyes. 'Don't 'what' me, Madam. You know 'what', you know why I got Mickey to smuggle me across without yer dad knowin'.'

Rose did know; they'd had many heated discussions about it. 'And what do you want me to say Mum? Hi Doctor, how have ya been for the last four years, I missed you, I love you, bye forever?'

That left Jackie speechless, because that was it in a nutshell. 'But like you said Sweetheart, it's been four years . . . is he still goin' to want to commit to a relationship with ya, and what about yer dad and yer brother . . . how are they gonna feel when ya don't come back?'

The kettle clicked, and Jackie started pouring water into the mugs.

'You didn't see his face Mum, on that street, when we saw each other for the first time,' Rose said. 'You ask Donna, she'll tell ya . . . Mum, he loves me, and I love him.'

Jackie silently filled the mugs with hot water, stirring each one as she did. 'Come on, they'll be gaspin' for these.'

They went back to the console room, and started handing out the drinks.

'There ya go, just how ya like it,' Rose said, handing the Doctor his tea in his favourite mug. 'I still can't believe I'm here, back in the TARDIS,' she said, leaning next to him against the handrail.

'I can't believe you jumped across universes, just to make me a cup of tea,' he said with a cheeky smile. 'So, what was it like for you over there?'

'Bad, at first. I couldn't come to terms with not seeing you again, with not bein' in the TARDIS.'

'She missed you as well, you know. I could feel her weeping.'

'Ah, you poor old thing,' Rose said, reaching out and stroking the coral. She felt a warm glow of love in her head from her old friend.

'Dad arranged for me to have some counselling, and Alice, the counsellor became my best friend . . . next to Mickey that is. Eventually, Mickey and Jake talked me into becoming a field agent, and then, a few months later I got your message to go to Norway.'

She took a sip of her tea and looked up at him. 'What about you . . . did you . . . did you think about me?'

'Oh, you know, you might have come to mind now and again,' he said, trying to keep his face serious, but he couldn't manage it for long. 'All the time. I was trying to keep busy to distract myself, when I bumped into Martha. That was a bit awkward, because she had a crush on me, and I didn't notice, all I could do was think and talk about you.'

'She had a crush on you?' Rose said, open mouthed.

'Don't sound so surprised, I mean, look at me, what's not to have a crush on?'

Rose laughed and leaned over, kissing him on the cheek. 'Oh I've missed this, all the chat and the banter.' She gave him her tongue between the teeth smile, as she reached down and intertwined her fingers with his. And she felt it, after four, long years, that tingle down her spine was still there, as it had been on that first day in Henrick's.

And the Doctor felt it too, as he always had, but he was a Time Lord, and he could feel so much more, he could feel that her time line had changed, and she would be happier than she could have imagined . . . eventually.

'Hello, you're Rose's mum aren't you?' Donna asked, as she walked over to Jackie, sipping her tea. She knew exactly who she was, because she had the Doctor's memories of her.

'Yeah, that's right, an' you're THE Donna Noble, the one Rose an' Pete have been talkin' about for weeks now, you've been causin' quite a stir.'

'Wha? Lil' old me?' she laughed. 'And who's Pete?'

'My husband, Rose's dad, he's Director of Torchwood over there.'

'Oh right, keepin' it in the family eh,' she said with a grin. 'But I wasn't anythin' special, not back then, I was just a temp from Chiswick, but now, it's like I was an event waiting to happen.'

'The main event by all accounts,' Jackie said with a smirk. She liked this woman; she seemed to be just like herself, down to earth, no airs or graces.

'I have all his memories y'know,' she said, sensing that Jackie needed to talk. 'I know how he feels about Rose, and you'd be surprised how he feels about you.'

'Hmm, ya can keep that one to yerself,' Jackie said.

Donna laughed. 'No, he has a great deal of respect for you, you're Rose's mother, and he is full of admiration for the way you brought her up on your own.'

'An' now he's gonna take her away from me.'

Jackie noticed that Donna hesitated, as though she wanted to tell her something, but couldn't. 'You'll have to ask him about that, my memories only go up to when I was on the Crucible, and up to then, he loved Rose. I can't see that changing anytime soon, but as to what he's going to do about it . . .' She left the sentence hanging in the air.

Martha had been looking at the rugged hunk that had been standing on the other side of the console, next to Sarah Jane, who she knew from the Subwave Network. This guy though, and the woman who was talking to him, she didn't know, and it was time to make the introductions.

'Hi, Martha Jones,' she said, holding out her hand.

'Er, Mickey Smith,' he said, smiling and shaking her hand, he'd been wanting to make the acquaintance of the hot chick that had been eyeing him up across the console. 'And this is Jackie, Rose's mum.'

'So, how did you get roped into all this then?' Martha asked, as she shook Jackie's hand.

'It's all my daughters fault,' Jackie said. 'Ever since she got stranded in the other universe, she's been tryin' to get back to 'im.'

'Jackie,' Mickey chided her. 'Torchwood needed to find the Doctor to warn him about the darkness, and hope he could do somethin' about it.'

'You work for Torchwood?' Martha asked with interest.

'Yeah, in the parallel universe, I'm a Special Operations Field Agent, like Rose, she was my field partner.'

'Torchwood over here got closed down, there's only Jack's team in Cardiff now,' Martha told him.

'Yeah, we had somethin' to do with that,' Mickey said with a grin. 'And what about you, what's your part in all this?'

'I'm a doctor, working for UNIT, I used to travel with the Doctor, and just like you, I got the job of finding him.'

'You've travelled with him, when was that?' Mickey asked.

'Er, I think it was soon after he lost Rose, he was all moody, sad, and lonely,' she said, smiling coyly at him.

'Just like Rose was then,' Mickey said with a laugh.

'So,' Martha started hesitantly. 'Is it back to Torchwood when we get back?'

'If I've still got a job,' He said, and saw Martha frown. 'I went behind Pete's back and smuggled Jackie over here without him knowin'.'

'But that wasn't your fault Love,' Jackie said. 'I nagged and bullied ya to do it. God, he's gonna be furious when we get back.'

Jackie could tell that Mickey and Martha wanted to carry on chatting and exchange stories of travelling with the Doctor, so she strolled away, and saw the Doctor on his own, as Sarah Jane took Rose to one side for a chat.

'I see you're still up to your old tricks,' she said in greeting. 'Hang on, brown suit; you're the original, right?'

He gave a single laugh. 'Yeah, it's me Jackie, how have you been?' he said, taking a sip of his tea.

'I'm fine thanks . . . got my Pete back . . . well, you know what I mean, and I've got my son, and I've got . . . Rose.'

'Life's been good to you over there then,' he said. 'And what about Mickey, did he ever find anyone?'

'Nah, he had a few dates, y'know, one night stands, but he's not goin' steady with anyone.'

'Well, I think that might be changing soon,' he said nodding his head sideways at Mickey and Martha, who were laughing and exchanging stories about Torchwood, UNIT, and travelling with him.

'And what about you Doctor, what are your plans for the future?' Jackie asked, wanting to know his intentions towards her daughter.

'Oh, you know, this life that I lead, it's difficult to make plans when you never know what's coming next.'

'Oh I know what's comin' next, it's danger, it follows you about like a stray puppy,' she said light-heartedly, before getting serious. 'You know she wants to stay over here with ya, leavin' her family behind.'

He had a sad look on his face. 'Yeah, I know, she loves me, and I love her, Jackie. It took me a while to admit it, because after nine hundred years, its not easy loving someone who, in cosmic terms, will be gone in the blink of an eye.'

'How much do you really love her, do you love her enough to let her go?'

He'd been asking himself that question, and he knew he would have to answer it very soon.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

All the teas and coffees had been drunk, friendships made or renewed, and it was time to start taking people home.

'Well, time's moving on,' the Doctor said, moving to the console and starting the time rotor.

'Says a man with a time machine,' Jackie said sarcastically.

'Yeah, thanks for pointing that out Jackie,' the Doctor said as people laughed.

Jack gravitated towards the Metacrisis Doctor, who he'd had a quick chat with before, when he was drinking his coffee. 'How's it feel to be the black sheep in the family?'

The Metacrisis Doctor frowned at him. 'Eh?'

'Don't you remember? You ran to the end of the universe to try and avoid me.'

'Oh that, yeah, sorry about that.' He glanced over to the Doctor at the console, and back to Jack. 'He saw you as something wrong in time . . . still does, but now you just seem weird.'

'I've been called that before,' Jack laughed. 'And what about you, you said you're the Doctor too, but you don't seem too bothered by my wrongness.'

'Yeah, I am him, but I'm in a different body, a part human body where my sense of time isn't as acute as it was. To me, you're just a curiosity, y'know, a bit weird.'

'And what happens now, I mean, two of you, how's that going to work?' Jack asked with a raised eyebrow.

'Oh his Lordship there has something up his sleeve, he seems to see me as his responsibility, as though I have no say in it, no free will.' He didn't know whether he should say anything else, but, what the hell. 'Although, if it's what I think he's got planned, I'm not complaining.'

'Right then, next stop Bannerman Road,' the Doctor announced as he set the coordinates.

'Oh, that's my stop,' Sarah Jane said, and then hesitated. 'That is Bannerman Road in London isn't it, not Aberdeen?' she asked. 'Only this one time, you did leave me in Aberdeen.'

Donna rolled her eyes and nudged him out of the way. 'Typical bloke, never think to ask for directions,' she said with a smirk.

She looked at the monitor. 'Ah, here we are, we'll be landin' in the park a few streets away.'

'Oh, like you know how to read a map,' the Doctor said with scorn.

Donna straightened up and gave him her "look". 'Jackie, limber up yer palm, I can feel a slap-fest comin' on.'

The Doctor visibly paled and Rose snorted a laugh as she hugged his arm and gently guided him from the console.

'Er, Donna, how would you like to do the honours and take our guests home?' he said sheepishly.

'Don't mind if I do Sunshine,' she said with a grin.

The Doctor walked over to Sarah Jane, as Donna landed the TARDIS. Everyone was hugging her and saying goodbye, before she walked down the ramp with him and stepped outside.

'You know, you act like such a lonely man,' she said. 'But look at you. You've got the biggest family on Earth.'

She gave him a big hug. 'Oh! Got to go. He's only fourteen. It's a long story . . . and thank you!'

Inside the TARDIS, Jack and Martha were preparing to leave, and he gave Rose a big hug. 'It's been so good to see you again . . . you look after him now, you hear?'

'Yeah, I will . . . and it's been good to see you too. I've missed you, bein' stuck over there,' she said with a sigh, releasing the hug.

'And I got to meet the legend that is Rose Tyler,' Martha said, pulling her into a hug.

'Legend, me?' she said with a laugh. 'I'm just a shop girl who met an amazin' alien . . . I mean, look at you, you're a doctor.'

'You are never 'just' anything Rose, you've saved the world on more than one occasion . . . and the Doctor, from what Mickey tells me.'

'I guess we all get that badge of honour when we travel with him, yeah?' Rose said.

Martha returned the smile. 'Yeah. C'mon Jack time to go, UNIT will be here soon to give us a ride.'

Rose gave them a sad, half smile as she watched them walk out of the doors, before turning around and looking at the rest of the team. She saw Donna on her phone, presumably phoning her family.

'Yeah, I'm fine. Are you all right?' she was saying, as she walked past.

Her mum was talking to Mickey near the console.

'I'm going to miss you more than anyone,' Mickey was telling her. She wondered what he meant by that, was he thinking of finally moving out of the mansion to find a place of his own? He could certainly afford it now, having been a senior agent for the last few years.

'What do you mean?' Jackie said. 'The Doctor's going to take us home, isn't he?'

'Well, that's the point,' he said.

'Mickey, what's goin' on?' Rose said as she came up to them.

'Well, Babe, I'm stayin' here,' he told her. 'I mean, it's been great an' all, and we've had some brilliant adventures workin' for Torchwood, but Gran's dead now, and I don't think Pete is gonna be too happy with me havin' put Jackie in all that danger . . . and, this universe looks quite appealin' at the moment,' he said with a lopsided smile.

'It's Martha, innit . . . you fancy your chances don't ya?' she said with a beaming smile.

'Er, she might have somethin' to do with it, yeah,' he grinned.

Rose hugged him around the neck and kissed him on the cheek. 'Good for you, go get her tiger.'

'Really, you don't mind?' he asked her.

She had a big grin on her face. 'I think it's brilliant, and it means I'll be able to visit my best mate when we're in the area.'

They hugged again, and then he jogged down the ramp and out of the doors.

Outside the TARDIS, the Doctor was using his sonic on Jack's teleport bracelet. 'I told you, no teleport . . . and, Martha, get rid of that Osterhagen thing, eh? Save the world one more time,' he told her.

'Consider it done.'

Jack stood to attention and saluted the Doctor, even though he knew he didn't like people saluting him, he felt he had to pay him some tribute. Martha followed his lead and also saluted, feeling the same need to pay him some accolade for everything he had done.

The Doctor gave them a warm smile and touched his forehead to return the salute, appreciating their tribute. They turned, and started to walk up the path towards the park entrance.

'You know, I'm not sure about UNIT these days,' Jack told her. 'Maybe there's something else you could be doing?' Like work for Torchwood, maybe, he thought to himself.

Mickey came out of the TARDIS, walking past the Doctor.

'Oi, where are you going?' he asked Mickey. They would have to be going soon if they were going to get to 'Pete's World' before the breach closed.

'Well, I'm not stupid; I can work out what happens next. And hey, I had a good time in that parallel world, but my gran passed away, nice and peaceful. She spent her last years living in a mansion. There's nothing there for me now, certainly not Rose,' he said.

So, he'd decided to stay. 'What will you do?'

'Anything,' he said, and he meant it. He wasn't the clueless car mechanic that had gone to stay in a parallel world. He was a man now, more mature and experienced. 'Brand new life . . . just you watch . . . See you, boss.

The Doctor held up his fist and Mickey bumped it, in their old, familiar style.

'Hey, you two!' Mickey called to Jack and the hot Martha as he ran to catch them up.

'Oh. Thought I'd got rid of you,' Jack said jokingly. Mickey put his arms around Jack's and Martha's shoulders, and Martha didn't mind that at all.

'Nah, not just yet Captain Cheesecake, I've come back to make my mark on this world,' he said with a grin.

'Hah! Mickey Mouse becomes Mighty Mouse,' Jack laughed.

The Doctor smiled and shook his head at his old friends, turning back to the TARDIS and a final journey that he was not looking forward to. He walked up the ramp, and activated the time rotor.

'Just time for one last trip. Dårlig Ulv Stranden. Better known as . . .'

'Bad Wolf Bay,' everyone except Jackie, said. "That must be where the dimension cannon still works", Rose thought, remembering all those years ago that Bad Wolf Bay had been the last place on the Earth where the breach had existed.

Jackie was silently looking at her daughter with tears stinging her eyes. She knew that this would be their last journey together before she lost her forever. Donna walked over to Jackie and gently put her hand on Jackie's arm.

'Can we have a chat before we land?' Donna whispered, nodding towards the corridor leading to the kitchen. Rose was absorbed with talking to the Doctor, so didn't notice them sneak away.

Jackie used a tissue to wipe her eyes. 'What have you got to say? I haven't got much time left with me daughter, I'd like to spend as much of it with her as possible.'

Donna smiled at her sympathetically. 'I can't say too much, because I don't want to upset the plan,' she started.

'What plan?' Jackie asked with a frown.

Donna ignored the question. 'Rose loves the Doctor, and the Doctor loves her . . . more than you or Rose will ever know. When she first started travellin' with him, it was the lifestyle and the adventure she loved.'

'Yeah, I know, she was infatuated with 'im,' Jackie said, rolling her eyes.

'And the Doctor was damaged goods, he was battle weary and broken, and your daughter healed him, she tended his emotional scars, and soothed the rage that burned inside him, and they fell in love.'

'An' you wanted to tell me this, because . . .'

'Because Rose promised him that she would stay with him forever, and she intends to keep that promise, and he's come up with a plan which means that they can be together for the rest of their lives, and you will still be able to see Rose.'

'Wha, Really? How the hell's he done that then?'

'You'll see, we'd better get back to the console, we're about to land . . . just don't say anythin' to Rose, we have to let it play out, and I didn't want you gettin' all upset an' doin' somethin' daft to spoil it.'

'Okay . . . and Donna . . . thanks.'

The Doctor landed the TARDIS, and started shutting down the console. He smiled at Rose. 'Why don't you go outside with Jackie and say your goodbyes in private.'

She kissed him on the cheek, he could be so thoughtful. 'Yeah, thanks.'

'Oh, fat lot of good this is,' Jackie complained. 'Back of beyond . . . Bloody Norway? I'm going to have to phone your father, he's on the nursery run.'

Rose smiled at her mum; didn't she know that her phone wouldn't work across different universes? If it did, she'd have been on the phone continually to the Doctor over the last four years. The Metacrisis Doctor stepped out behind them and looked around.

'I was pregnant, do you remember? Had a baby boy,' Jackie said to him, not even considering that he wasn't the original Doctor.

'Oh, brilliant. What did you call him?'

'Doctor,' she said with a smile.

The Metacrisis Doctor looked at her in wonder, what an honour. 'Really?' he asked.

Jackie smiled, he was an easy target. 'No, you plum. He's called Tony.'

The Doctor and Donna stepped out of the TARDIS, as Rose looked around suspiciously, something wasn't right.

'Hold on, this is the parallel universe, right?' she asked.

'You're back home,' he told her.

'And the walls of the world are closing again, now that the Reality Bomb never happened. It's dimensional retroclosure. See, I really get that stuff now,' Donna said.

'No, but I spent all that time trying to find you. I'm not going back now,' Rose said defiantly.

'But you've got to,' he told her, his hearts breaking at what he was doing. 'Because we saved the universe, but at a cost, and the cost is him . . . He destroyed the Daleks, he committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own,' he said.

'You made me,' the Metacrisis Doctor said accusingly.

Thoughts of a previous regeneration entered his head, an old renegade warrior with a posh, gravelly voice. 'Exactly, you were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge.'

He looked at Rose. 'Remind you of someone? That's me, when we first met, and you made me better, now you can do the same for him.'

'But he's not you,' she protested. Ah, she didn't believe it. Come on Rose, you're smart, work it out . . . please, he thought.

'He needs you,' he told her. "I need you", he thought. 'That's very me.'

Donna could see that Rose hadn't realised what the Doctor was offering her. 'But it's better than that, though. Don't you see what he's trying to give you?' She looked over to the Metacrisis Doctor. 'Tell her . . . Go on.'

This was his chance, he had to convince his love that he was still . . . well, him! He was still the man she had fallen in love with. 'I look like him and I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except, I've only got one heart.'

'Which means?' Rose asked, unsure of where this conversation was going.

'I'm part human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want.'

"If I want?" Rose thought, of course she wanted. That was the whole reason for coming back. 'You'll grow old at the same time as me?' She asked,

'Together.'

She hesitantly put her hand on his chest and felt the 'lub-dub' of his single, human heart. "Oh God, its true", she thought. She was suddenly reminded of an argument they had once had.

['I don't age, I regenerate. But humans decay, you wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you . . .'] She wondered then how he was going to end that sentence, and now she knew.

'Oh, and don't forget this,' the Doctor said, as he reached into his pocket and threw them a chunk of TARDIS coral.

'This universe is in need of defending . . . chunk of TARDIS, grow your own.'

'But that takes thousands of years,' the Metacrisis Doctor said with a frown.

'No, because . . .' the Doctor started to say, when Donna interrupted him.

' . . .if you shatterfry the plasmic shell and modify the dimensional stabiliser to a foldback harmonic of thirty six point three, you accelerate growth by the power of fifty nine,' she said, looking at them as though they had dribbled down their suits.

'We never thought of that!' they said together.

'I'm just brilliant!' she replied with a grin.

'The Doctor . . . in the TARDIS, with Rose Tyler, just as it should be,' the Doctor said, calling the Metacrisis Doctor by his own title, to try and convince Rose that they were the same . . . well nearly the same.

'But . . . what about you?' Rose asked in concern, she knew that he loved her, and that he had missed her.

'Oh, I'm fine, I've got madam,' he said, nodding his head to Donna standing behind him.

'Human with a Time Lord brain, perfect combination! We can travel the universe forever . . . Best friends! And equals, just what old skinny boy needs, an equal!' Donna said with a smile.

They heard the TARDIS time rotor rumble behind them.

'We've got to go. This reality is sealing itself off for ever,' the Doctor said.

'But, it's still not right, because the Doctor's still you,' she protested.

'And I'm him,' the Doctor said, nodding at the Metacrisis Doctor.

Oh, this is ridiculous, there can't be two of the same person . . . could there? And then she thought of a way of finding out, she stood between them. 'All right. Both of you, answer me this. When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me? Go on, say it.'

Oh she was smart, "my brilliant Rose Tyler", the Doctor thought. 'I said, Rose Tyler.'

'Yeah, and how was that sentence going to end?' she asked him, challenging him to profess his love for her.

He knew what she was waiting to hear, and he SO wanted to tell her, but if he did, then he knew that she wouldn't have the fantastic, normal life that she deserved. 'Does it need saying?'

She turned to the Metacrisis Doctor. 'And you, Doctor? What was the end of that sentence?'

So this was it, the Doctor had given him the opportunity to steal his girl away from him and claim the prize. He leaned in close, almost intimate as he gently held her elbow, and whispered the three little words in Rose's ear that she had longed to hear.

'I love you.' Rose turned and looked into his eyes, and saw the truth looking back at her. She grabbed his lapels and pulled him into a passionate kiss.

And that was that. It should have been the Doctor kissing Rose, but it wasn't to be. He turned his back on a scene that was too painful to watch, and stepped inside the TARDIS. Donna took one last look at the lovers before closing the door on Pete's World for the last time.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

The Doctor was already at the console, returning the TARDIS to his own universe. Donna walked up the ramp, as the Doctor stood to one side and leaned against the coral strut. She casually walked around the console, trying to assess his mood, and think of something to say in sympathy.

'I thought we could try the planet Felspoon. Just because. What a good name, Felspoon. Apparently, it's got mountains that sway in the breeze . . . Mountains that move, can you imagine?'

'And how do you know that?' he asked her quietly.

'Because it's in your head, and if it's in your head, it's in mine.'

'And how does that feel?'

'Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene! Great big universe, packed into my brain. You know you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just tried hotbinding the fragment links and superseding the binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary.' She was stuck in a loop, and she looked at him with concern; what was happening to her?

She gasped in a breath. 'I'm fine . . . Nah, never mind Felspoon. You know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin. I bet he's great.' She picked up the trim phone. 'Charlie Chaplin?' she said into the phone. 'Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin? Shall we? Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester, Charlie Brown, no, he's fiction. Friction, fiction, fixing, mixing, Rickston, Brixton.'

She suddenly doubles over the console in pain, gasping for breath. 'Oh, my God.'

The Doctor slowly walked over to her, his voice full of sadness. 'Do you know what's happening?'

She straightened up and took a breath. 'Yeah.'

'There's never been a human Time Lord metacrisis before now . . . and you know why.'

'Because there can't be.' She moved away from him around the console. 'I want to stay.'

'Look at me,' he said quietly, but she continued to adjust the console. 'Donna, look at me,' he said forcefully.

She reluctantly looked up from the console and saw his face, and knew what was coming. 'I was going to be with you . . . forever.'

'I know.' Everyone thinks that when they first meet him, but he knew how long forever really was.

'The rest of my life . . . travelling in the TARDIS . . . The Doctor-Donna,' she whispered, as if trying not to be heard by the universe. And then, the realisation hit her, of what he must do to save her life. But she didn't want to be saved if it meant going back to her ordinary, miserable existence.

'No . . . Oh my god . . . I can't go back, don't make me go back. Doctor, please, please don't make me go back,' she pleaded as he held her shoulders firmly.

'Donna . . . Oh, Donna Noble . . . I am so sorry.' He could see the fear in her eyes, and she could see the regret in his. 'But we had the best of times.'

'No.' Surely there were more times to come, it couldn't end so soon, she'd only just got started.

'The best . . . Goodbye.'

'No, no, no,' she protested, as he put his fingers on her temples. 'Please . . . please. No. NO.'

Donna was hanging from the window cleaner's cradle on the side of an office building. 'Oh great! I'm back where I started when I found Skinny Boy,' she said.

When she looked down, she gasped, the building went down and down seemingly forever. When she looked up, she could see the cradle, but it wasn't the Doctor standing there, it was some crazy looking woman, dressed in a grey, Victorian dress, with wild hair, and a warm, comforting smile.

'Doctor! Help me, I can't hold on for much longer,' she called out.

['Then let go Donna,'] the woman said, her soothing voice echoing in her head.

'Are you mad?! If I let go, I'll fall.'

['Then I will catch you, Donna']

'Not bloody likely,' she said with her old, defiant attitude overcoming her fear. 'Who are you?'

['You know . . . I've been with you since the beginning.']

'The TARDIS, you're the TARDIS . . . Where am I?'

['You are suspended,'] the voice told her.

Even hanging on the end of a cable, she was still able to roll her eyes. 'I can see that, the absence of ground under my feet kinda gave it away,' she said sarcastically.

['No, I have suspended you in time, I wanted to say goodbye properly.']

A strand of the cable split on the sharp metal edge of the building and flew apart, making Donna squeal slightly. She saw the blue energy from that shrivelled little man in that wheelchair thing. The oversized pepper pots, what were they called? Daleks, that was it. She saw the golden glow around the Metacrisis Doctor.

'But why me?' she asked him.

'Because you're special.'

'Oh, I keep telling you, I'm not.'

'No, but you are. Oh. You really don't believe that, do you? I can see, Donna, what you're thinking. All that attitude, all that lip, because all this time you think you're not worth it.'

'Stop it.'

'Shouting at the world because no one's listening. Well, why should they?'

'Oh, please don't tell me this is where I see me life flash before me eyes,' she said flippantly. ''Cos yer can stick that where the sun don't shine Missus.' But then she thought about it. 'Unless it was the Nice 'n' Bright Double Glazing office Christmas party, when I snogged Paul from accounts, you can put that one on a loop,' she said with a grin.

['Oh Donna, I am going to miss your sense of humour.']

'Well, that's a fitting epitaph, Donna Noble, not the bravest, not the cleverest, but definitely the funniest.'

['You may fool other people, you may even fool yourself,'] the TARDIS said. ['But you do not fool me, Donna Noble. You use humour as a tool, as a shield, and as a weapon.']

She was still in the TARDIS, but who were all the other people? She could see that hunk, what's his name? Jack, how could she forget him? And the blonde woman, the Doctor's love, her name was . . . Rose, yes, Rose, she was going to remember her name . . . Rose. She had said the darkness was coming.

'It's coming, Donna. It's coming from across the stars and nothing can stop it.'

'What is?'

'The darkness.'

'Well, what do you keep telling me for? What am I supposed to do? I'm nothing special. I mean, I'm . . . I'm not. I'm nothing special. I'm a temp. I'm not even that. I'm nothing.'

'Donna Noble, you're the most important woman in the whole of creation.' Who had said that, what was her name again?

'TARDIS, what's happenin' to me? I'm havin' trouble rememberin' things . . . Where's the, er . . . thin bloke with hair that needs a comb puttin' through it . . . the Doctor, where's the Doctor?'

['Don't worry Donna, he's here, and he'll look after you.']

Another strand of the cable snapped, and Donna gasped in horror at the thought of falling into the black abyss. She remembered people with purple lightning in their eyes and coming out of their fingers. Helix energy that skinny bloke had called it. And then there was Andromeda, a galaxy far, far away with lots of robots. Or was that the Star Wars film? The way her memory was at the moment, it was difficult to tell.

But she did remember being in a health spa, with diamond cliffs outside the glass dome, and where was that skinny bloke with the sticky up hair. The Doctor, yes, the Doctor, remember him, he's important, that impossible man called the Doctor.

'The cables wearing a bit thin, I could do with some help down here,' she called out to the woman on the cradle.

['Don't worry Donna, you won't come to any harm.']

'Don't worry she says, you're not the one hangin' out over a buildin'.'

['Neither are you, it's metaphorical,'] the TARDIS told her in a calm, warm voice.

'No it ain't, it's Adipose Industies.' Another strand of the cable snapped, and she dropped a few inches. Was that the Antarctic down there? Snow, he loved snow that skinny bloke did. She preferred it hot, Egypt or . . . Mexico, the Doctor recommended Mexico. THE DOCTOR! That was him.

"Oh, this is a big library", she thought to herself, was she temping here; she didn't remember Hounslow Library being this big? She remembered something about the shadows, "stay out of the shadows", that man had said . . . the Doctor. 'Ooh my memory lately, I don't know what's happenin', but she remembered the shadows ate people, or was that a horror movie she'd seen?

'Are you alright?' she asked him.

'I'm always alright.'

'Is alright special Time Lord code for really not alright at all?'

'Why?'

'Because I'm alright, too,' she told him . . . Time Lord, that was it, he was a Time Lord.

Another cable strand snapped and she could hear a buzzing sound, was that a giant wasp in the library of this manor house, it was all too weird, "I bet Nerys has spiked my drink", she thought.

"Oh, I can remember Nerys, but I can't remember . . ." Who were all those people in the TARDIS?

'We'll be late for cocktails,' he shouted from outside.

'What do you think? Flapper or slapper?' she asked, unsure if she had got it right.

He looked her up and down and then smiled warmly. 'Flapper . . . you look lovely.'

['Relax Donna, don't fight it, just let it happen.']

'But if I don't fight, I'll forget them, and I don't want to forget them,' she pleaded. She could feel her memory slipping away, and she knew what was coming, a life with no memory of any of these incredible people, a life without the . . . Doctor.

'TWANG'. Another strand snapped through, and she was in the middle of a war, except one side looked like gas mask wearing fish-men.

'You are completely . . . impossible,' she told the skinny Doctor man.

'Not impossible . . . just a bit unlikely.'

"I really must stop eating cheese at bedtime", she thought with a smirk, which quickly vanished when she saw the thin man cradling his dying daughter.

'I've been a father before.'

'What?'

'I lost all that a long time ago, along with everything else.'

'I'm sorry. I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? You talk all the time, but you don't say anything.'

'I know . . . I'm just . . . When I look at her now, I can see them. The hole they left, all the pain that filled it. I just don't know if I can face that every day.'

'It won't stay like that. She'll help you. We both will.'

'But when they died, that part of me died with them. It'll never come back. Not now.'

'I tell you something, Doctor. Something I've never told you before. I think you're wrong.'

'TWANG'.

That man, who was he? The Doctor, how could she forget his name, when she could remember Nerys without any trouble. He'd set fire to the sky, because those dwarfs with the potato heads were trying to choke the planet.

'I'm not coming with you. I've been thinking. I'm sorry. I'm going home,' she said.

'Really?'

'I've got to.'

'Oh, if that's what you want. I mean, it's a bit soon. I had so many places I had wanted to take you. The Fifteenth Broken Moon of the Medusa Cascade, the Lightning Skies of Cotter Palluni's World, Diamond Coral Reefs of Kataa Flo Ko. Thank you. Thank you, Donna Noble, it's been brilliant. You've, you've saved my life in so many ways. You're . . . you're just popping home for a visit, that's what you mean.'

'You dumbo.'

'And then you're coming back.'

'Know what you are? A great big outer space dunce.'

'Yeah.'

'Doctor! Help me, I don't want to forget you,' she yelled at the wind, as she saw a small thin man wrapped in a white robe. She'd met Mohandras Ghandi, and he was SO like the Doctor. It had been nice and hot in India, unlike this place.

People with elongated heads and linguini coming out of their mouths, moved across the snowy landscape towards her. The wind started to sing a song, a song of hope and of freedom.

'DOCTOR! What's happening to me? Have I got dementia, because I don't seem to be able to remember?'

'Doctor-Donna, I have come to tell you that we will remember you, and you will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the Doctor-Donna, and our children's children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your name forever,' Sigma Ood said.

The sound of his voice was calming, and the song was uplifting for her. 'Thank you,' she said quietly.

'TWANG'.

God, it was hot . . . had she gone to hell?

'Vesuvius explodes with the force of twenty four nuclear bombs, nothing can survive it, certainly not us,' that skinny bloke told her.

'Never mind us,' she said.

'Push this lever and it's over . . . Twenty thousand people,' he'd said, the . . . Doctor . . . must remember his name, Doctor, Doctor, the Doctor.

And they had pressed the lever together, launching themselves out of the volcano and into an alleyway at night. There was her mum's car, next to that blue box, what was all that about, a blue police box? Who was that blonde woman, didn't I know her, I'm sure she was important, like the skinny bloke.

And then she was in Saint Mary's Church, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, and she was getting married, except she wasn't, because she was in a weird looking Gothic cathedral. There was that man again, the skinny streak of nothing, and he'd been crying.

She smiled at him. 'Am I ever going to see you again?'

'If I'm lucky.'

'Just . . . promise me one thing . . . Find someone.'

'I don't need anyone,' he said arrogantly.

'Yes, you do. Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you.'

'Yeah . . . thanks then, Donna. Good luck. And just . . . be magnificent.'

['And, before you go, Donna, I wanted to give you a gift,'] the TARDIS said in her head.

'Excuse me if I don't take it off you right now, I've got my hands full at the moment,' she said with her final bit of sarcasm.

['You don't need hands for this gift, it is one of the Doctor's most treasured gifts, it is the gift of hope, and although you won't remember why, you will always have hope for the future.']

"The Doctor, that was him, the skinny bloke," she thought, and then the cable finally gave way. Donna screamed as she fell into the darkness.

['Donna Noble is leaving the TARDIS . . . Donna Noble will be saved.']

'DOCTOR . . . DOCTOR . . . HELP ME, PLEASE,' she cried out, and then she thought about what she had said.

'Doctor who?'


	26. Epilogue

**In the novel Beautiful Chaos BY GARRY RUSSELL, Donna writes a letter to her mum, which I think makes a beautiful ending to her story.**

* * *

 **Epilogue**

Sylvia Noble was in the kitchen, tidying things away after lunch. Her father had gone to the allotment to check on his vegetables, whilst her daughter was upstairs in her room, socialising on the internet. Apparently her friend Susie Mair had set up a blind date with a young chap called Shaun Temple.

It had been a month since the Doctor had brought her home. She had been unconscious, and Sylvia had thought the worst, that her daughter had been injured or was in a coma.

"Because if she remembers, just for a second, she'll burn up. You can never tell her. You can't mention me or any of it for the rest of her life" the Doctor had told them.

Did he know what a burden he had put on her and her father? She still wasn't sure what had gone on . . . couldn't really believe that he was an alien and that her daughter had travelled the stars. This was Chiswick. Things like that didn't happen in Chiswick.

"I just want you to know there are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of her. That there are people living in the light, and singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand million light years away. They will never forget her, while she can never remember. And for one moment, one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe" the Doctor had said with sad pride.

Sylvia had reacted out of fear and distress when she said, "She still is. She's my daughter".

"Then maybe you should tell her that once in a while" he had retorted angrily. And he was right. This strange man had shown her daughter that he cared deeply about her, and perhaps now it was time she did the same.

"Ding-dong". The door bell rang, bringing Sylvia out of her reverie.

'I wonder who that could be?' she asked herself. Wilf had a key, the postman had already been and Donna hadn't said she was expecting a parcel.

She went to the front door, and could see the silhouette of someone through the frosted glass. Opening the door, she was confronted by awkward looking teenager.

'Mrs Noble. I don't know if you remember me, but me and my brother helped Donna and the Doctor last month when the aliens took over the computers,' the young man said.

Sylvia glanced nervously over her shoulder, hoping Donna hadn't heard what he'd said. 'You're one of the Carnes boys from Park Vale aren't you. Joe is it?'

'Lukas, Joe's my young brother.'

'Oh that's right, Lukas. Sorry,' Sylvia said with an embarrassed smile.

'That's all right Mrs Noble, and we live in Reading now. Mum came into some money when someone posted a lottery ticket through our letterbox. A quarter of a million it was, no idea whose ticket it was though.'

'How lovely for you,' Sylvia said. 'And you've come all this way to let me know.'

'What? No, well yes, and no. I came to deliver this.' He held up an envelope with the word "Mum" on the front in Donna's hand writing. 'Donna asked me to deliver it today, six weeks ago.'

Sylvia felt a shiver run down her spine. This letter was written before Donna had lost her memories of her former life. 'Er, thank you Lukas,' she said, taking the letter and then remembered her manners. 'Would you like to come in?'

'No thank you Mrs Noble, I'm going to the West End to spend some of my birthday money before I head off back home. Say hello to Donna and the Doctor when you see them again.'

'Yes, of course,' she lied. 'Take care.' Lukas nodded, turned and walked away. Sylvia had another look up the stairs, and listened for any sound of Donna moving about.

When she was sure that her daughter was engrossed with her laptop, she went through to the kitchen. She considered switching on the kettle and making a cup of tea, but thought she'd need something a bit stronger to get her through what was coming next.

She poured herself a shot of her father's whisky and sat at the kitchen table, sliding her finger under the flap of the envelope and taking out the letter.

"Dear Mum,

You asked me what I do. What the Doctor and I do. And I lied. I'm sorry. I told you he was a fixer, that we nipped around the country and fixed things. That I was his PA. Not true. Well, of course it isn't and I'm not sure you believed me anyway, you're my old mum, you're sharper than that."

Sylvia smiled at that and took a sip of the whisky. So far, so good.

"Remember what Nanna Mott always said? You can't hide secrets, cos there's no such thing. Someone always knows – otherwise who told you the secret in the first place? So true. Well, a couple of years ago, I was drifting. Job to job, place to place – thank God I took that job at H.C. Clements. Thank God I let you nag me into it (even if it wasn't actually the job you wanted me to do) – not that I told you that then of course, oh no. That would've let you off the hook too easily.

But I am glad you did, Mum. Cos that's how I met the most fantastic man (and no, not poor Lance. One day, promise, I'll tell you the true story of him). I met the Doctor. He's an alien, Mum. But I think you guessed that. I'm not sure why you don't like him much, but I often wonder if it's cos he took me away, and I think there's part of you that can't accept that he's the one who really changed me. Made me happy. Made me a better person."

Tears started to sting her eyes and blur her vision. She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

"I'm sorry, that came out wrong, I'm not blaming you. You gave me the best life. Really you did. But he shows me there's more. You asked how long I plan on staying with him. For Ever. Which, in his line of work, could mean anything. But I'm not coming home any time soon. I promise I'll visit more and write more cards. I'll try and phone more often, too. You wouldn't believe what he's done to my mobile – makes the rest of them look like tin cans and a bit of string."

Sylvia was openly sobbing now.

"No, we're not a "couple" – there's nothing romantic in him. He's my friend. He's my best friend. I hope I'm explaining this to you properly. I couldn't say it to your face, I had to write it down. I was going to do it as a speech but then thought as you like letters, I'd actually write one. First time I've written a letter that didn't end 'yours faithfully' since Auntie Maureen's Christmas blouse. What was I, 14? And you know how that turned out – don't think I've written this much since then!"

She laughed through the tears.

"He looks after me, Mum. You have to trust him. I do. And I hope that if I trust him, you will too. Granddad does. He knows – and please don't yell at him, it was me who made him promise not to tell you what we do. Because you'd worry.

Oh Mum – you should see what I see. We've been to places, to worlds, to futures and pasts you could only dream about. I think half of them I dreamed up cos they can't be real. But they are. And everywhere we go, we make a difference. We put things right, we make people happier.

That's what the Doctor is all about. He finds a way for the universe to make sense. And I love him for it. Because he's selfless, and I think that's rubbed off on me a bit but clearly not enough because I should've known how much you were hurting. I should've known that just coming home for Dad's anniversary wasn't enough. You need me, but he needs me even more. And that is awful because I love you, Mum, and not being able to be there for you is wrong, but I need you to understand the reason I'm not there more often.

I am going to keep travelling with the Doctor to other planets, other worlds, and meet aliens and stuff, good ones and a few bad ones, because I'm finally living my life. All these years, I waited for someone like him and I never realised it. But now I know I'm doing the right thing. I feel alive.

And he'll look after me as much as I look after him. Trust me when I say I'm safe and I'll always be safe. And if anything does happen to me (and it better not cos I'll come back and haunt his skinny little life for ever) I know he won't leave you wondering. He'll tell you no matter how hard that would be for him. Because he understands being alone and how wrong that is and I don't think my little spaceman would wish that on anyone.

I love you, Mum, and by the time you get this (assuming Lukas does what he's asked) I'll be long gone again. But that's the joy of being with the Doctor. I could be back before you know it. Six weeks might have gone for me, six minutes for you.

Take care of Granddad. And that lovely Netty – she's good for him, and I think you know that now. She's not trying to be a replacement for Nanna Eileen, she's an alternative. And it gives him something else to do other than sit in damp allotments all night.

I love you so much and I'll see you soon.

D xxx"

 **The End**


End file.
